


Threads That Bind Can't Unwind

by smiley_seulgi



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/F, Red String of Fate, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16042448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smiley_seulgi/pseuds/smiley_seulgi
Summary: In a world where the Red Strings of Fate exist, Kang Seulgi is faced with the hardest decision of her life when her best friend, and unknowing soulmate, Bae Joohyun, asks her to tie her string to someone else’s.(Wenrene beginning, Seulrene endgame - I sWEAR there's a happy ending)





	1. As Fate Would Have It

“Joohyun’s getting _married_ in the morning, Seulgi,” Sooyoung half yells, half whispers at her from across their shared table. The ebony haired woman’s eyes are wide and wild with apprehension, shock etched in every wrinkle of her crinkled forehead.

Seulgi does her best to give the younger woman no reaction at all. She merely lifts another piece of kimchi to her lips using her set of chopsticks. “It would seem so,” Seulgi replied smoothly, feigning nonchalance, despite her heart betrays the nervous energy beginning to jitter throughout her lean frame.

The slightly older woman glances from left to right, ensuring that no one else seated near them was eavesdropping on their conversation. To her relief, everyone around them seems too engrossed in eating and catching up with their distant relatives to pay them any mind.

The last thing Seulgi felt she needed at the moment was another reminder of Joohyun’s wedding. She and Sooyoung were a part of the multitude of people attending the _dinner rehearsal,_ no less. But she felt as though she understood why Sooyoung was reacting the way she was now.

Out of all of those within her and Joohyun’s wide range of mutual friends, Seulgi had always been the only one who could see the fabled red strings of fate, wrapped around each person’s pinky finger.

To be endowed with such a gift was a rarity these days. Not many possessed the ability to see the strands that depicted destiny and dictated who people were to spend the rest of their life with, and if they did, they often kept it to themselves.

The power Seulgi held was even more special because she could _choose_ who people’s soulmates were. Seulgi could cut the cord of destiny, and knot it to someone else in an instant if she wanted.

Seulgi could determine _fate_ itself, almost as though she were playing the role of some kind of goddess.

Now, however, it seemed Sooyoung had developed the same gift Seulgi had. Seulgi noticed the taller woman had nearly choked on her glass of Pinot Grigio earlier in the evening, though she hadn’t been sure why.

In her point of view, there wasn’t anything worthy of sputtering and coughing up a storm. Seulgi had merely given Sooyoung an odd look before returning back to finishing the meal before her.

 She would learn later that that’s when Sooyoung noticed who Seulgi’s string led off to. Seated a mere few yards away were two of their best friends, Bae Joohyun and Son Seungwan, surrounded by their immediate family.

The two brides to be were laughing and chatting merrily with their close relatives. Both of the young, impossibly beautiful women were practically radiating with joy, as they should be. Each of them were all teeth and smiles and giggles, effortlessly charming and welcoming.

As Joohyun lifted up her half empty wine flute for a toast, the red string tied around her pinky wrapped around the stem of the glass. Both Sooyoung and Seulgi watched as the cord tugged at Seulgi’s own hand, resting peacefully atop the table. That’s when Sooyoung had nearly inhaled her drink down the wrong pipe.

Furiously, the younger woman had broken out her phone and hastily tapped a discreet text out to the woman sitting across from her. Once Seulgi had picked up her own handheld device to read her message, Sooyoung watched the shorter woman become as white as a sheet.

Seulgi stood abruptly, excusing herself to the ladies’ room, as per the younger woman’s texted request. After a few beats, Sooyoung hastily followed the visibly shaken woman, glancing once over her shoulder to ensure no one was following them before she pushed open the door.

“You better start explaining yourself,” Sooyoung muttered as soon as she burst into the bathroom, “Right fucking now.”

 Once the bathroom door shut behind her, the taller woman spun on her heel and slid the door’s deadbolt in place, ensuring her and Seulgi’s privacy.

Turning back around, Sooyoung found the older woman standing in front of the bathroom sinks. Seulgi had her head bowed over one of the faucets. Her long, wavy black locks hid her face from view, almost like the curtain of a theater before the opening act.

The older woman’s hands were placed on either side the sink, her palms flat against the cold marble. Although her face wasn’t visible, Seulgi’s posture was one of clear and utter defeat. Standing only a few feet away, Sooyoung sensed that the other woman had begun crying silently to herself.

“Seulgi,” Sooyoung murmured in a softer tone, taking a cautious step closer towards the other woman. Her heels clicked against the tiled floor, echoing against the walls enclosed around them. “Why are you just _letting_ this happen?”

Seulgi shook her head slowly, then lifted her eyes to her reflection, studying how beaten down she looked. Sorrow radiated from each ring of the broken woman’s irises when she finally met Sooyoung’s burning, questioning stare.

“You don’t understand,” Seulgi said in a voice hardly above a whisper, almost as if she were talking to herself. Her voice came out cracked and broken, as if it were made from shattered hopes and dreams. “Joohyun _asked_ me to do this.”

“What?” Came Sooyoung’s incredulous response, coupled with the sound of Seulgi’s tear drops hitting the countertop. “She knows Seungwan isn’t the _one,_ Sooyoung _,_ ” Seulgi laughed bitterly, throwing her head back slightly, “She’s always known Seungwan hasn’t been the one.”

Sooyoung’s face drops, all of her malice evaporating into thin air. The tall woman finds herself leaning against the bathroom door for support at the weight of Seulgi’s abrupt confession.

“Joohyun begged me to help her defy the laws of the universe, to let her be with Seungwan. Even if she isn’t the one Joohyun’s meant to be with for the rest of her life. Even if they aren’t soulmates,” the older woman continued in the same strangled tone.

Each syllable of the truth made it harder and harder for Seulgi to continue explaining the twisted tale of her and Joohyun’s agreement. She’d harbored her secret for so long, everything had begun spilling out of her. All of the time and effort she’d spent to conceal the fact that she was Joohyun’s true soulmate vanished in an instant.

“Besides, they’re in love with each other,” Seulgi adds offhandedly, glancing at her distressed friend in the mirror’s reflection, as if trying to convince that this was enough of a reason for her. Saying it out loud made Seulgi wince, however, as though the phrase physically pained her.

 

In most ways, it did.

 

“What can I possibly do, Sooyoung?” Seulgi asked hopelessly, tears racing down her porcelain cheeks.

 

“They’re in love. They’re my best friends.”

 

Sooyoung shakes her head slowly, reaching a hand out to cup Seulgi’s shaking shoulder. “That might be true right now,” the younger woman says slowly, “but _you’re_ the one Joohyun’s meant to be with, Seulgi. It’s _your_ string tied around Joohyun’s finger, not Seungwan’s.”

Sooyoung reaches for the paper towel dispenser and hands Seulgi a wad of the soft brown paper for her to daub her watery eyes with. “No matter what, you’re both destined to be together,” Sooyoung says confidently, “That’s the power of fate.”

The older woman sniffles quietly, hanging her head once more, the paper towels crinkling in her closed fist. “Not anymore,” Seulgi whimpers, “Joohyun wants me to cut her thread and knot it to Seungwan’s during the ceremony tomorrow.”

Sooyoung pauses then, unsure of what to say next. “She doesn’t know, then, does she?” The taller woman finally murmurs, “Joohyun doesn’t know it’s you she’s destined to love.”

 The empty silence of the room sends her a message loud and clear, and she runs a hand through her hair, sending a spray of black tresses over her shoulder like a dark ocean wave.

 “Why didn’t you ever tell her?” Sooyoung bites her lip, searching for an answer in her friend’s limp, crushed spirit. The younger woman is growing angry with her, Seulgi can tell by the harsh edge in Sooyoung’s voice.

“You’re telling me you’re _willing_ to do this?” The taller woman questions, “You’re going to give up Joohyun, _your_ _soulmate_ , for good? For someone you _know_ she’s not meant to be with?”

“I love her,” Seulgi replies in a voice so soft, Sooyoung has to strain to hear. The older woman’s words are coupled with a slight shrug of her shoulders and a pitiful laugh, signifying how she’d already accepted it.

 Seulgi wipes away the tears coating her face and glances up into the mirror at the seething woman. “Sacrifice is just another part of love, Sooyoung. I’ll do whatever she wishes, as long as she’s happy. She knows I will.”


	2. Connected by Crimson

Even at an early age, Seulgi quickly came to the realization that she was different from all the other kids around her. There was something about Seulgi that no other child she knew seemed to possess.

Seulgi saw the red strings when no one else seemed to be able to. She witnessed them tying people together, weaving up and over each other to form a tapestry of sorts invisible to others.

No matter where the girl looked, the vibrant red threads were constantly shifting and moving. It was almost as if they were living and breathing along with those they were tied to. The sight was beautiful, and Seulgi couldn’t quite understand why more people weren’t joining her in gazing at endlessly at them.

Her teachers often scolded her during class because they would find the young girl’s gaze meandering about the room. Truthfully, she was just watching the strings tightening and slackening with each of her classmate’s movements, or she was studying her own string rather than paying attention to the lessons.

It didn’t take long before even the school’s principal believed that Seulgi had issues with focusing. After a few parent teacher sessions with Mr. and Mrs. Kang, however, everything quickly straightened itself out.

Despite the young girl’s seemingly distracted behavior, Seulgi often reigned the top scorer in her class. She had even been placed in a few accelerated programs due to the potential shown in her standardized test grades.

Because of this, Seulgi’s teachers had no choice but to permit Seulgi’s absentmindedness with terse smiles and slightly reprimanding words. Somewhat smugly, the young girl continued to gaze at the beautiful strings surrounding her, transfixed at what they could all mean.

The first time Seulgi tried asking her parents about the crimson colored twine that seemed to be attached to everyone’s pinkies _,_ she was seven years old and had just finished her first week of the second grade.

“Mommy, what’s with that string wrapped around your finger?” Seulgi had asked her mother one afternoon after Mrs. Kang had picked her up from school.

Her voice was high pitched and full of innocence, chiming above the volume of her mother’s favorite radio station as they drove home through the winding streets of their neighborhood.

“What string, sweetie?” Mrs. Kang had replied, confused as to what her daughter was going on about. Glancing down at the steering wheel at her hands, Mrs. Kang saw nothing like a red string attached to any of her digits.

The older woman was ready to brush it aside as her daughter’s wild imagination when Seulgi piped up from the backseat once more. “The one on your pinky that’s connected to dad’s,” the seven year old stated simply, gazing out of her window with a far away look in her eye.

Mrs. Kang nearly slammed her foot down on the brake at her daughter’s words. She’d heard stories from her mother, long ago, of the same exact twine Seulgi was questioning her about now. Mrs. Kang herself lacked the sight, and had never believed her mother’s crazy claims until many years of maturing.

Anything she heard about the fabled strings, Mrs. Kang had deduced to merely a fairy tale that had taken storm within the mainstream media. Her beliefs wavered, only slightly, when she brought her long term boyfriend home for the holidays one year.

Mrs. Kang’s mother was slowly dying, anyone could see the consumption through the woman’s bone thin frame and sunken eyes. It had been a few months since she’d been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, untreatable even by chemotherapy.

Once she heard the news, Mrs. Kang had made it a point to return home as frequently as she could. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with her mother before it was too late.

 After dinner, Mrs. Kang and her mother helped wash the dishes while her boyfriend fell asleep upstairs in the guest bedroom. “He’s the one, you know,” her mother had said, her voice full of warmth and cheerfulness, despite the dull shine of her watery brown eyes.

Mrs. Kang, a college sophomore at that point, flicked an eyebrow up at her mother’s words. “Oh?” she teased lightly as she ran a dry cloth over the washed dishes. It had been ages since her mother had even weighed in on her love life. “How are you so certain?”

The older woman hummed a tune she used to sing as a lullaby, and winked at her daughter, “The red string never lies, Qian.” She and Qian shared a laugh at that, though deep down, Qian knew there was a truth to her mother’s words.

Just a few weeks after her daughter’s graduation later that year, Qian’s mother passed away.

Mrs. Kang wished she could’ve told her mother how she started believing in the strings once again, that her boyfriend had proposed to her, how her name would change from Song Qian to Kang Qian…but she never got the chance.

“Wait a second, you can see it?” Mrs. Kang asks in a bewildered tone, glancing at Seulgi in the rearview mirror. The seven year old giggled happily in her booster seat, the epitome of sunshine and joyfulness.

On the other hand, Mrs. Kang had grown pale and her skin felt clammy. The older woman wasn’t sure why, but she had begun to feel anxious all of the sudden.

 “Of course I can see it! What’s wrong? Can’t you, mommy?”

Rather than answering, Mrs. Kang pumps the gas pedal, urging the car to move at a faster rate. As soon as the older woman ushers her daughter into their home, she begins a quick lesson on the fabled red strings. “Which hand is my cord on, Seulgi-ah?” She asks gently, holding both of her hands up towards her daughter.

The seven year old grins and points at her mother’s right hand, hooking a tiny index finger around her pinky finger. “It’s right there, mommy,” Seulgi says triumphantly. “Do you know what this string is?” Mrs. Kang asks, smiling at her daughter, pointing to her pinky.

Seulgi pouts and shakes her head in shame, “No…? What?” Mrs. Kang helped Seulgi shrug off her backpack, then lowered herself on her haunches until she was eye to eye with her daughter. “This is the red string of fate, Seulgi,” Mrs. Kang said slowly, in order to guarantee she held Seulgi’s attention.

“Everyone has a string, but not everyone can see them,” Mrs. Kang continues. She reaches her hand out for Seulgi to hold and smiles down at her daughter. “Whoever your string is connected to is your soulmate. You have the power of having this knowledge, sweetie.”

With that out of the way, Mrs. Kang walked into the kitchen and rummaged around in the fridge for one of Seulgi’s favorite meal: carrots and peanut butter dip. “You have to use it wisely,” she called over her shoulder, “Don’t let anyone know unless if you trust them, _really_ trust them.”

“But why, mommy?” Seulgi pouted, following her mother into the kitchen. She’d struggled to pull herself up onto one of the kitchen table seats and followed her mother’s movements, shadowed by the string tied around her finger.

“Because people will try and _use_ your powers, Seulgi,” Mrs. Kang replied, breaking out a cutting board and a kitchen knife to slice Seulgi’s carrots. “ _Bad_ people might try and use you, Seulgi-ah,” she continued, giving her daughter a pointed look before turning back to chopping the second grader’s snack.

Seulgi cutely furrowed her brows together and began tapping her finger on her chin, rocking back and forth on her heels. She was troubled by the fact that she didn’t know what that word meant…soulmate.

 “Mommy?” The second grader asked, her voice quiet and shy.  

Mrs. Kang hummed in response, turning back towards her daughter as she finished fixing the second grader her afterschool snack.

“What’s a… _soulmate_?”

 

**

 

Seulgi was thirteen, almost fourteen, when she realizes the consequences of her gift.

She’d forgotten vital part to her gift. Her mother had mentioned it to her all those years ago, when she first told Seulgi about the red strings of fate, about how people might want to manipulate the power the young girl held over fate.

But somewhere in between the years of harboring her secret and not letting anyone know her powers, the truth had slipped out of her. The rumors spread like wildfire, causing her to have to move schools _twice_.

Seulgi’s awakening of the dangers of her gift came sharp and fast, exactly like the shove that sends her toppling to the ground of the courtyard after school one day.

She looked up, frightened and bleeding from a few scrapes on her arms, and glared at her assailant, wondering what she ever did to get targeted in the first place. She typically kept to herself throughout the school day. As a teenager, Seulgi was quite uncharacteristically quiet around other kids her age, and tended to study people before interacting with them.

Seulgi squinted up, one hand hovering over her eyes to protect herself from the harsh rays of sunlight blinding her. The only features she could make out at first were a glimpse of her school’s uniform and a brown leather shoulder bag.

“What’s this I hear about you being able to see people’s destinies?” The boy sneered, shoving Seulgi’s shoulder back down onto the pavement when she tried to scrabble back up.

When she peered up again, Seulgi recognized him immediately as Lee Donghae, a senior at her new high school. His shaggy brown hair was spiked up with an excessive amount of expensive hair product, and his smooth and pimple free face was twisted up into a disgusted expression.

Even though the young man had a charming look about him, his personality was anything but, and left much to be desired of such a pretty face. As a lowly upcoming freshman, she’d heard many stories of Donghae and his gang of friends.

Usually, these stories depicted them picking on new students for no reason whatsoever, but the warnings she received from her peers couldn’t protect her now. It was too late for that now. Seulgi would have to deal with them all by herself, surrounded and alone in the courtyard.

“No… I can’t. It went away when I was little,” Seulgi quickly said, trying not to wince at her smarting palms. She was lying, of course. She’d always been able to see, but she had long grown tired of other adolescent, hormonal teens begging her to reveal who they were destined to spend the rest of their lives with.

 

_“Seulgi-ah, can you pretty please tie my string to Exo’s Sehun? He’s so beautiful…I’ll name our first child after you, I swear!”_

_“I want to get married to Kim Taeyeon! I’ll be your friend forever if you tie our strings together, Seul.”_

_“I’ll give you a year’s worth of my allowance if you knot my crush and I’s strings!”_

 

Her classmates had hounded her for years about her ability, mercilessly pestering her for personal favors and outrageous requests regarding the strings they couldn’t see themselves. They wanted her to connect them with models, with idols, with actors.

The list of instances where Seulgi had been witness of this ranged on and on. Yet despite having her day constantly filled with these naïve requests, Seulgi never allowed herself to succumb to the peer pressure. She found a brilliant way to rid herself of this nuisance, she claimed in her second to last year of middle school that she no longer had the sight.

It worked, for the most part. The constant rumors and demands from her fellow students diminished considerably. Many people moved away for high school, or went to different schools, diffusing the knowledge of Seulgi’s abilities almost completely. Still, part of Seulgi’s reputation still seemed to proceed her.

The teenager had never tweaked someone’s destiny, and she never planned on doing so. She knew that she shouldn’t listen to anyone’s selfish desires, not even her own. Fate wasn’t something to be meddled with lightly, and she’d been taught by her mother to uphold its ways.     

“Well, now,” Donghae scolded in a condescending tone. He cracked both of his knuckles to appear more menacing, and Seulgi would’ve laughed had she not been so afraid. “That’s unfortunate, isn’t it?”

The four boys began closing in on her, each sneering cruelly at her like a pack of wild hyenas. “Alright then, fellas,” Donghae sighed exasperatedly, “looks like Seulgi here’s out of luck.”

With that, the ring of boys began an onslaught of fists and kicks at the girl’s fallen form. The young teenager merely screwed her eyes shut and kept herself huddled on the ground, her arms over her head to protect from any stray blows.

This wasn’t the first time Seulgi had been targeted for her gift, but this one definitely packed a punch, pun intended. The world was filled with people who refused to believe in the crimson twine, and Seulgi understood that these boys were just lashing out against something that scared them: the infinite.

After a few heated moments, Donghae fixed his hair and straightened his uniform. He stopped his gang with a single snap of his fingers. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Kang,” he spat in disgust before turning away from her towards the parking lot. The rest of the boys all high fived each other, cackling at Seulgi’s battered and beaten figure.

Seulgi watched them go, brushing her bleeding lip with the back of her hand and wincing slightly as she moved. Her eyes remained trained on Donghae’s pinky finger, on the eye-catching cord connecting him and another boy in the gang close together.

Lee Eunhyuk was his name, if Seulgi remembered correctly, another boy in the senior class. Her head was reeling from the blows that no doubt would blossom into bruises, but despite this, she still managed to understand. Donghae was acting out of panic, afraid of being discovered by a society who decried relationships that strayed from the stereotypical heterosexual normality.

She watched as Eunhyuk threw an arm around Donghae’s strong shoulders, grinning at the other boy. She studied the way Donghae hesitantly circled his own hand around the boy’s back. Seulgi caught Donghae’s glance over her shoulder and saw something akin to fear within his flashing black eyes, as if threatening Seulgi not to say anything about what she now knew.

As soon as the gaggle of boys rounded the corner and were out of sight, Seulgi picked herself up off of the pavement and dusted her uniform off. Hastily, she wiped the blood beading up around the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

Then the young girl began the long way home, opting to travel on foot rather than offer herself back up to her bullies at the bus stop. Watching the wind rustle peacefully through the trees, she hummed to herself absentmindedly. Anyone passing her would never had any inclination she’d just been a victim of bullying, unless if they looked close enough to notice her cuts and scrapes.

Seulgi never particularly minded the accounts of bullying she’d endured. When people are ignorant of something so profound, it’s understandable for them to be fearful of it at first.

 

**

 

Seulgi is sixteen years old when she meets Bae Joohyun for the first time. She’s anxiously surveying the crowded cafeteria of her high school for an empty seat, her cheeks flaming and her eyes downcast.

It was only the first week of her sophomore year, and Seulgi hadn’t managed to make a single friend yet. Consequently, she’d been eating most of her lunches secretly inside the school’s massive library, but after getting caught twice already, Seulgi decided not to risk it any further.

The young girl holds her lunchbox timidly in front of her like some sort of shield, searching for a face in the crowd that seemed at least a _tiny_ bit friendly enough for her to sit down.

She’s about to turn away and walk through the double doors towards her haven of solitude and literature when she hears someone calling her name faintly. On the other side of the lunch room, a tall, slim girl with flowing fiery red hair furiously waves at her.

“Seulgi! Yah! Kang Seulgi! I saved a seat for you!” Sooyoung, her seatmate in Algebra III and Trigonometry, yells wildly across the cafeteria. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, the shy sixteen year old picks her way through the cramped aisles made by the rows of tables.

Joohyun is eighteen years old and barely even glances Seulgi’s way when the younger girl sits down across from her, but that doesn’t matter to Seulgi at all. She’s grinning and thanking Sooyoung for being so kind when she spots Joohyun skillfully using her chopsticks to gather a mouthful of white rice from her own packed lunch.

The familiar sight of red string interlocking their lives together was enough for Seulgi to become instantly star struck while in the older girl’s presence.

While everyone at the table began chatting and chowing down on their food, Seulgi had yet to unpack her own lunch. She remained mesmerized by the appearance of her soulmate. The person she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with sat right before her eyes, and she was drop dead beautiful.

Each person’s cord was different. After years of witnessing them, Seulgi became aware of the tiny details that made everyone’s string unique. Some had tiny tassels at the ends, others had streaks of gold, mingling with the rich red colored strands.

Her and Joohyun’s were adorned with small golden beads the size of teardrops, and were woven so tightly around their fingers, the string almost looked like a real ring. Though she’s seen many cords in her lifetime, Seulgi swore that her and Joohyun’s was the most striking.

She wished the sight were granted to more people. She wished Joohyun could see how delicately their lives were symbolically woven together. She wished she weren’t the only one who knew she and Joohyun were destined to live the rest of their lives with each other.

After so many years of watching her own string weave and wane through the tapestry of other people’s lives, Seulgi never dreamed of finding her soulmate at such a young age.

“Hello,” Seulgi murmurs, getting over her transfixed behavior by tearing her stare away from the intricately twisted twine joining them together. A pair of large, soulful eyes flick up to meet her wavering gaze.

She offers a slightly shaking hand out towards the most beautiful girl she’s ever laid eyes on and forces a smile across her nervous features.

“I’m Kang Seulgi, what’s your name?”

The girl smiles and grasps Seulgi’s slightly sweaty palm without batting an eyelash, as if she were used to people crumbling beneath her beauty. Which sounded about right to Seulgi.

“Bae Joohyun, nice to meet you,” the girl murmurs in a smooth, soothing voice.

Seulgi opens her mouth to say something else when suddenly, a dashing young boy with dark brown hair and a radiant smile playing across his lips slides into the empty seat beside the older girl. “There you are,” he says, playfully nudging Joohyun with his shoulder.

After a moment of hushed whispers between them, Joohyun remembers Seulgi, who’s watching them with a pair of unreadable eyes. “Oh, where are my manners?” The senior says, “Seulgi, this is my boyfriend, Bogum.”

The boy, Bogum, dips his head at her, flashing his handsome smile at Seulgi. The freshman fights to keep her cheerful expression from faltering as she sends a crooked grimace in the boy’s direction.

She eyes Bogum’s hands for his string, watching it tangling and twisting in the air. Whoever Bogum’s soulmate was, they weren’t there, sitting with them at the table, but Seulgi seemed to be the only one who knew this, so she kept mum.

It wasn’t like her at all to be confrontational, especially about her gifts. Lee Donghae and his posse of bullies had taught her that last year. For the rest of the period, Seulgi silently munched on her food and chatted politely with Sooyoung about their homework.

Whenever Seulgi could, she stole glances at the line of burgundy stretching across the cafeteria table from her and Joohyun. Instinctively, Seulgi formed her hand into a fist and tugged lightly at their string.

She’d reached out and touched other people’s strings before without any sort of reaction, so the sophomore wasn’t expecting to see anything but their string stretch within her grasp.

But Joohyun gave a little bit of a start, her hand inched forward ever so slightly with Seulgi’s pull. It caused her to knock over her open water bottle, spilling it all over the table. Hastily, Seulgi lifted her lunchbox before the liquid could spread towards her.

She pulled out the packet of napkins her mother had packed for her and tossed a few of them over the puddle forming on the table. As she and Sooyoung helped mop up the spill, she felt Joohyun’s eyes boring into her, and her ears and cheeks flushed with crimson.

The courage to look up and meet the older girl’s burning stare only came to the sophomore only after she and Sooyoung have soaked up every bit of the spilt water bottle. Getting up from her seat to the nearest trash can, Seulgi forces herself to glance at the older girl’s expression.

 _Why did it seem like Joohyun felt that?_ Seulgi wondered to herself as she threw out the sodden napkins, _that’s never happened before with the strings._ Once she’d settled down in her seat, she took a peek at the older girl.

Joohyun was sitting in the same exact position as Seulgi had left her in. Her posture was perfectly rigid and a slight frown dancing across her face. With each passing second Seulgi held Joohyun’s inquisitive stare, the younger girl became increasingly anxious.

There was no doubt that Joohyun had felt Seulgi’s pull and was trying to come up with an explanation for it. _Did she see me to that?_ Seulgi panicked as she tried to keep her face as emotionless as possible. _Does she know about the strings?_

Joohyun looks as though she’s about to say something when suddenly, the lunch bell rings, saving Seulgi from any possible confrontation. The younger girl made herself scarce in an instant, leaving Joohyun behind, giving her the same odd look before allowing Bogum to lead her away from the lunchroom.

After that fateful encounter, Seulgi’s refrained from ever purposefully tugging at her and Joohyun’s string, though she will admit to running her fingers over the smooth strands from time to time.

One of the few things that comforted her in times of stress included stroking at the thread that bound her to Joohyun, especially if the other girl were in the same vicinity. Knowing who she was destined to spend the rest of her life with while letting her fingers run over the fibers sent an eerie calm over her.

She’d rarely do it, despite how soothing it was to do so. Seulgi had noticed that each touch seemed to have some sort of effect on Joohyun as well. The older girl would stare curiously down at her hands with a bewildered expression, as if wondering what was causing the odd pulling sensation stemming from the invisible red string knotted around her finger.

Not only that, but Joohyun would shoot Seulgi a look whenever the younger girl touched the string absentmindedly, almost as if she _knew_ exactly who was behind the unexplainable motions.

 A week and a half after Seulgi had first sat at Sooyoung and Joohyun’s lunch table, Joohyun broke up with Bogum. Seulgi was one of the last of their friend group to hear the news, and was in the midst of all the details when Joohyun strutted up to their table, with a new boy in tow.

“Hey guys,” she greeted in her soft, warm voice. Seulgi’s so distracted by the sight of her soulmate, she doesn’t even realize the older girl’s holding hands with him. “This is Suho, my new boyfriend,” Joohyun announces proudly as they sit down.

 Seulgi’s grin falls flat onto the floor below her in an instant. Glancing quickly from side to side, it seems as though she isn’t the only one of their friend group who’s shocked by this new development.

Soojung’s hand was still cupped around Seulgi’s ear from whispering, while Jinri was mid-chew beside her, and Sooyoung’s eyes were practically bugging out of her head.

“Hi, everyone,” Suho murmured shyly, blushing slightly as he slipped into the seat beside Joohyun. Seulgi had to admit, in her opinion, Suho was even more handsome than Bogum, but his looks didn’t matter in the slightest.

He’d never win Joohyun’s affections the same way Seulgi could. The red string tied around his pinky leading to a tall, lanky boy with shaggy blonde hair a few tables away from their own. “Hi,” Seulgi greets timidly, shooting a worried look at Joohyun.

The older girl merely shrugs, still smiling that gorgeous smile. Seulgi watches as the older girl runs her hands over Suho’s, as if she were trying to feel for their connected strings. Disappointment flooded through the sophomore’s lean frame at the sight.

As soon as she’d been told Joohyun had broken up with Bogum, she’d begun hatching a plan to tell the older girl the truth. But now, her hopes had been dashed, and Seulgi was getting an inkling feeling that this would become a recurring pattern between her and Joohyun.

For now, however, it was enough for her to be near Joohyun, to be able to know that their lives, were forever intertwined. So Seulgi merely ate her lunch and bore the way her heart had begun to break.

**

 

“This is bullshit,” Sooyoung grits her teeth, furious at her friend’s selflessness.

She’d always known that Seulgi had a giant heart, capable of loving and forgiving and comforting. Whenever any of their friends needed someone to lend an ear, Seulgi was the first to volunteer. The older woman never failed to shower her friends with loving texts and phone calls, catching up whenever she had a moment to spare.

If any of their friends were feeling down, Seulgi was always one to respond with advice and encouragement before anyone else. Over the many years they’d known each other, Sooyoung had witnessed Seulgi nearly give the clothes off of her back to those who needed it. She’d watched the older woman nourish broken hearts, uplift spirits, and bring hope to those around her.

It didn’t matter what Seulgi was doing at the time, the young woman would never fail to drop everything she was doing to help someone who needed her. This was one of the many qualities of the older woman that made her such an amazing role model to those around her, Sooyoung included.

 But Sooyoung never expected the older woman to be as altruistic as willingly give up her destiny with Joohyun. On top of that, she’d never expected Seulgi to even _be_ Joohyun’s soulmate. She’d always know the two young women were close friends. The three of them had all met around the same time, at the same point in their lives.

Sooyoung was particularly attuned to Joohyun and Seulgi’s ways, especially since they were all within the same friend group, and hung out frequently all throughout their time in high school. Taking after Joohyun and Seulgi, Sooyoung even followed the older girls to Seoul National by some stroke of a miracle.

After over four years of friendship between them, Sooyoung practically remembered how each of the other girls interacted with each other. There was the pair’s unspoken seating arrangement at their old lunch table in high school, how Joohyun’s seat was _always_ across from Seulgi’s, no matter the context.

Once, the three of them had met outside of school at a popular diner to study for their upcoming midterms of a bite to eat. Just as Sooyoung drew a chair from the table Seulgi was at, Joohyun appeared out of nowhere and slid into it smoothly. “Thanks for pulling my seat out for me, Sooyoungie,” the older girl had winked, causing her and Seulgi to burst into a fit of giggles.

Besides that, Sooyoung had always felt that the younger girl seemed crushed whenever Joohyun brought up a new romantic interest of hers. She would’ve never noticed had she not been watching Seulgi out of the corner of her eyes after Joohyun introduced Suho’s replacement, Oh Sehun.

It was like Sooyoung had been watching someone crumple up a sheet of notebook paper, then smooth it out again all within the span of a few seconds. Seulgi’s joyful expression had collapsed, then rearranged itself back into a lopsided smile flashing at the new couple standing in front of their table.

Sooyoung could never quite put her finger on what was amiss between the two best friends, so she never brought it up with either of them. Clearly, Sooyoung had underestimated Seulgi’s acting skills. In the younger woman’s point of view, she’d never seen the blatant lovesick look in the older woman’s eyes until now.

“That’s just some cliché saying, Seulgi, nothing more,” Sooyoung spat. The taller woman crosses her arms over her chest to make herself appear more intimidating, and narrows her eyes at the older woman, “Love is hardly patient or kind.”

The older woman’s eyebrows flick up in surprise. “Is that what you really think, Sooyoung-ah?” Seulgi challenges, her coal colored flashing eyes bore into Sooyoung’s. “Or are you just upset I’m willing to give Joohyun what she wants? Even if it’s a life without me?”

“Those who see the strings aren’t supposed to mess with fate,” Sooyoung deadpans, “It’s not right, and I _know_ you’ve never meddled with that before.” The taller woman wants to chastise herself for not finding out about Seulgi’s true feelings sooner, for not developing the gift of sight faster. Perhaps she could’ve prevented this if she’d paid better attention.

 At the younger woman’s unwavering, stubborn expression, Seulgi opens her mouth to continue her reasoning. “What would you do if you were in my place, Sooyoung-ah?” The older woman queries, her voice steadily rising higher and higher, until its soaring above them.

 “What if Yeri had been in a serious relationship for over a year and suddenly asked you to tie _her_ string to someone else?” Seulgi’s practically yelling at this point, her voice reverberating wildly around them. Despite their fear of being caught, Seulgi doesn’t show any inclination of lowering her tone.

 “What if you were suddenly bombarded with wedding invitations and endless texts from your best friend asking you which bouquets of flowers she should have on display for the big day?”

Sooyoung remains silent, watching the older woman slowly regain her composure. Seulgi’s breathing heavily now, chest heaving and her knees shaking.

“You know you’d do the same as me,” Seulgi mutters underneath her breath, staring at Sooyoung with a furious look. The older woman studies the swirl of emotions flickering over Sooyoung’s face with a grimace.

“You know you’d give it all up if Yeri asked you to.”


	3. Begging For Thread

“Bringing up my fiancé is not fair and you know it, Seulgi,” Sooyoung whispers, surprised at the older woman’s low blow. Her jaw flexed and clenched as she watched Seulgi begin washing her hands dutifully in the sink, as if trying in vain to wash away her pain.

As Sooyoung looks on, she twists the engagement ring glittering on her finger. The familiar weight of the band floods her system with comfort and reassurance. It reminds the taller woman of her soon to be wife, Kim Yerim.

Yeri was currently on a flight back to Seoul from Shanghai for Joohyun and Seungwan’s wedding. She’d been on a business trip with her entertainment firm, and wouldn’t arrive until the dead of night, and would most likely fall straight asleep in order to prepare for the next morning.

Yeri was and still is Sooyoung’s godsend. The younger woman was an angel in disguise who relentlessly believed in the strings though she could never see them herself. Sooyoung recalled the day they met with such a force of emotion swelling through her, tears began to prick at her vision.

 

**

 

Sooyoung’s mother had passed away the year Sooyoung left for Seoul National University to study nursing. She’d moved into Seulgi’s newly leased apartment as the older woman’s roommate. It was mid-semester when it happened. The cause of Mrs. Park’s death had been a violent, sudden deterioration that no one could have predicted.

 Despite how quickly Mrs. Park had passed, the lasting effects were a completely different matter. In fact, they were almost catastrophic on the young woman. Sooyoung blamed herself for her own ignorance to her mother’s health immediately after she’d heard the news.

“I should’ve known better,” the nursing major whispered, horrified and breaking down, clinging to Seulgi’s arms when her father called. On speaker phone, Mr. Park’s voice sounded even more raw and broken than either of them could’ve imagined, notifying his daughter that he no longer had a wife and she no longer had her mother.

“I shouldn’t have left home,” the taller woman cried after she numbly hung up the phone. She allowed Seulgi to pull her closer, and Seulgi drew the shivering young woman towards the warmth and strength of her chest. “It’s not your fault, Sooyoung-ah,” Seulgi had cooed, gently smoothing down the frazzled strands of the younger woman’s long, black hair.

The two best friends stayed in that position for hours, sprawled out on the carpeted living room floor, with Seulgi’s lean arms wrapped carefully around Sooyoung’s shuddering frame. After that, Sooyoung rarely left the apartment, save for sporadically flitting to her classes and getting notes from her classmates.

In an instant, Sooyoung became a kind of stranger in all of her friends’ eyes. The spry, fiery girl Seulgi had known the taller woman to be throughout their years of friendship was nowhere to be found. In her place was a quiet, reserved, severe woman who rarely spoke and hardly ate without being prompted to first.

Sooyoung’s transformation scared Seulgi enough to take off work a few times each week. She began making home cooked meals again, something that had become a rarity due to both of their college workloads and Seulgi having to close at her job. The English major also went through a ritual of throwing out the mounds of junk food Sooyoung hoarded within the kitchen cabinets.

Rather than studying in the library by herself, as she had grown accustomed to, Seulgi would remain within their apartment. She stayed a mere hand’s stretch away from the younger girl, always within shouting distance, just in case if there came a time when Sooyoung needed her. She did all this while maintaining a respect for Sooyoung’s privacy, knowing that if the younger woman ever needed her, Sooyoung would ask.

It took time for Sooyoung to regain the part of herself that Seulgi, as well as the nursing major’s other friends, cherished so dearly and wished feverishly to see again. After Seulgi spilled the news of Mrs. Park’s passing, Joohyun became a frequent visitor to their apartment during that time. The engineering major was never far behind Seulgi when she came home.

The eldest of them all would tag along with the English major after class to surprise Sooyoung. Joohyun did her best in helping the younger woman with her chemistry labs, doing anything and everything she possibly could to lift even a fraction of the massive weight that had settled on Sooyoung’s shoulders.

Even Seungwan made an effort to comfort Sooyoung. The Canadian often sent Joohyun over with batches of freshly baked goodies for all of them whenever she found the time to bake. Seulgi learned from Joohyun that it was one of Seungwan’s passions. While Joohyun visited, Seulgi and Sooyoung heard many stories of Joohyun coming home to find Seungwan in the middle of her kitchen, sprinkled with bits of flour and kneaded dough.

Joohyun’s stories about Seungwan always made Sooyoung quirk a smile, and Seulgi thought it had to do with the way the older woman spoke. It was clear to the English major then that Joohyun was undeniably in love with Seungwan, and while the fact made Seulgi’s heart pang with pain, she quickly forgot her sorrow when she realized Sooyoung still needed her.

Seungwan began to make appearances when Joohyun was too busy with her classwork to drop in. Though the engineering major never failed to apologize profusely whenever she wasn’t able to stop by, all of them understood completely. Joohyun’s workload was staggering compared to theirs, and Seulgi considered it a miracle the older woman had time to spare to even say hello.

Seulgi appreciated the way Seungwan did her best with the given situation. They’d known each other for almost a semester by the time of Sooyoung’s mother’s passing, and Seulgi was still learning more and more about Joohyun’s girlfriend with each day.

The English noticed that the music major was timid, yet encouraging at the same time in her way of comforting Sooyoung with her many tales of her time spent in Canada. There were funny stories where she’d accidentally embarrassed herself in front of the whole school that cracked a smile on the nursing major’s solemn face. There were freshly baked cakes adorned with rich frosting and fresh strawberries.

Seulgi would giggle along quietly as she sat next to Seungwan and ate the Canadian’s latest batch of goods, feeling increasingly fond of Joohyun’s girlfriend with each visit she made. Though it sent a twinge in her heart, Seulgi was beginning to understand why Joohyun was so invested in the music major.

Seungwan had a heart of gold, and she wasn’t afraid of showing it.

With all three of their efforts combined, Sooyoung finally returned to following her school schedule diligently, to acting somewhat like her usual self, to flashing smiles more and more frequently. Her misery and gloom still followed everywhere she went, however.

After those many grueling months of slow improvement on Sooyoung’s part, Seulgi and Joohyun arrived at the apartment to find Sooyoung chatting animatedly with a girl they’d never seen before. “Oh! You guys are finally here!” Sooyoung called happily, causing Seulgi and Joohyun to cast sidelong glances at each other.

The tall young woman stood from her spot on the couch, and threw her arms around a startled and stunned Seulgi and Joohyun. “It’s about time you guys came home,” Sooyoung continued in the same cheerful tone, a large grin gracing her elegant features. “We’ve been waiting for hours for you.”

Unable to come up with a coherent response, Seulgi looked at Joohyun for guidance, her eyes wide and her face portraying utter confusion. Joohyun looked back at the English major, her own expression mirroring Seulgi’s down to the tee. Neither of them were sure what to make of the situation at hand, until Joohyun cleared her throat quietly.

“Sooyoung-ah,” the engineering major finally stammered, “Why don’t you introduce us to your friend?” Sooyoung looked over her shoulder, and gave a short jerk of her head, signaling the other young woman to stand. The stranger had shoulder length chocolate brown hair, a set of wide doe eyes, and a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s.

With three pairs of eyes locked onto her, the young woman stepped forward confidently, brushing at the sides of her rich red coat to smooth out its creases, and executing a perfect bow before them.

 “Hello,” the young woman greeted softly, nodding at the two older women as she came to a halt beside Sooyoung. Her voice was lower than either of them had been expecting from such a petite, pretty young woman, but warm and soothing at the same time.

“My name’s Kim Yerim, but you can just call me Yeri. I’ve heard all about you guys,” she said, wrapping an arm around Sooyoung’s lean waist. Seulgi followed the action subtly, and saw the string immediately, matching almost perfectly with the same color as Yeri’s coat.

Unlike her and Joohyun’s, Yeri’s was minimalistic, yet held the same riveting beauty and symbolism to it as any other red string of fate. The English major followed the trail of the string from Yeri’s right pink, and was shocked to find that it ran a length to Sooyoung’s own hand. Yeri was Sooyoung’s soulmate, and neither of them had any idea. Or did they?

After exchanging another look between her and Joohyun, Seulgi burst out into one of her own trademark smiles. Her heart was fluttering in her chest, for she knew that Yeri and Sooyoung were destined to be together. “Well, Yeri,” the English major said cheerfully, “Would you like to stay for dinner? Joohyun and I brought pizza!”

It took no time at all for Yeri to be inducted within their ring of friendship. The girl was an upcoming freshman at Seoul National as well, and had been on a tour of the college campus when she’d spotted Sooyoung wiping away her tears in one of the bathrooms, and felt the urge to stay back and comfort the older woman.

One thing led to another, a round of hot chocolates were purchased from one of the coffee joints and they’d ended up chatting most of the day away. About a week after Yeri’s introduction, Sooyoung would come to reminisce on the time with a somewhat confused look in front of Seulgi and Seungwan.

 “It was so odd,” she chuckled, mainly to herself rather than Seulgi, “But the moment Yeri walked up to me, I felt like I _knew_ her.” Seulgi had merely smiled in response, nodding her head as she watched Sooyoung take a sip of her coffee.

It was endearing, the way Sooyoung talked about Yeri when the younger woman wasn’t around to hear it, even more so to Seulgi because she knew they were destined to be together.

 The two of them kept in touch often through texting and meeting up at different places on campus. It was almost as if the hardship had never been endured by Sooyoung.

“I think I know what you mean,” she murmured, her thoughts drifting back to Joohyun for a brief moment before Seungwan shook her out of her reverie. “You got the brown sugar latte, right, Seul?” The Canadian asked, setting down a steaming mug in front of her before slipping into the booth beside the English major.

Seulgi tries to ignore the pang in her chest when she sees Joohyun’s name flash on Seungwan’s phone screen, and thanks her politely for grabbing her drink for her. She pretends not to see the wide, happy grin that dances across Seungwan’s face, the eagerness in the Canadian’s fingers as they tap wildly across her phone screen.

 

**

 

The startling blank look in the older woman’s eyes shone indifference when Sooyoung finally rose her gaze to meet her, breaking out of her thoughts of the past. It almost looked as if Seulgi’s soul had vacated her body.

“I suppose you’re right to some extent,” Seulgi relents, sighing as she dries her hands with another wad of paper towels, “I’m sorry...I’m sorry, Sooyoung-ah.”

She leans against the bathroom counter and faces her friend, studying her shoes as if they’re the most interesting thing in the room. “At least Yeri believes in fate. Joohyun seems to have lost faith in it,” the older woman murmurs.

Sooyoung bites her bottom lip before asking, “Are we...Yeri and I, we’re soulmates, right?” Seulgi smiles faintly, “Yes, Sooyoung-ah. You’ve no need to worry about that.” An audible sigh of relief fills the room, pauses their conversation. Deep down, Sooyoung had a gut feeling that Yeri had been her soulmate all along, but hearing it aloud made her feel much better.

 “Would Joohyun have lost her faith in the first place had she known it was you, Seulgi?” Sooyoung pipes up, collecting her thoughts after dwelling on her fiancé. The older woman chuckles darkly at her, “Aren’t you the one being unfair now, Sooyoung-ah?” Seulgi tosses the water stained paper towels into the trash bin beside her with a flourish of her wrist.

“I was in the midst of preparing my confession when Joohyun broke the news that she was dating Seungwan,” Seulgi admits sheepishly, “You remember.” The day Seulgi was set to move into her dorm, she’d planned to surprise Joohyun with the news that it wasn’t _just_ pure luck Seulgi kept popping up everywhere she was, that there was indeed fate involved, but it didn’t pan out.

“I’ll accept that I was just a little bit too late with my efforts to tell Joohyun the truth, but you’ve got to give me a little slack,” she breathed out, exhaling slowly and softly. “We both know Joohyun was never single for very long…what else could I do but wait it out? Should I have walked up to her one day during lunch and told her in front of her and her current boyfriend that I was actually her soulmate?”

Sooyoung leans against the cold bathroom wall, mulling over the older woman’s words silently, taking in everything the older woman was saying. “I was two grades below her, and you were three,” Seulgi continued her reasoning, “It took me _two_ _years_ to get to Seoul University after she did, and by that time, she’d already dated a handful of people there, Sooyoung-ah.”

Seulgi ran a hand over her face, and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she felt a headache coming on. “Each time I plucked up the courage to admit _I_ was the one who held the end of Joohyun’s string, she turned up with someone new on her arm, _literally_. And then, just after I get accepted into Seoul National to follow Joohyun, to follow my _destiny,_ I find out she’s dating Seungwan. Literally the day I moved into my dorm, I get introduced to Seungwan, and they’d already been together for a few weeks.”

The name of Joohyun’s fiancé rolls off of Seulgi’s tongue in an unintentionally harsh tone, causing Seulgi to shake her head at herself. It reminded her just how close the wedding was, how little time Seulgi still had left before she had to do the one thing she’d swore she’d never do: meddle with the power of fate.

“At first, I was apprehensive about their relationship,” the older woman murmured, almost as if she were talking to herself, “Back then, Joohyun didn’t really commit to anyone for more than a few months at _most,_ so I decided to play it cool since I figured this one would be the same way _._ ” She waited for Sooyoung’s nod of approval to keep going before she spoke again.

“But as I grew to know Seungwan, and their one month anniversary became their sixth month anniversary, I began to grow weary. Everything was going so smoothly for them; the only problem was that Seungwan’s fate didn’t belong with Joohyun’s. I think somewhere along the line, Joohyun figured it out eventually,” Seulgi said.

Sooyoung threw a hand up to stop Seulgi in her tracks, a bewildered expression tugging at her furrowed eyebrows. “Wait, how does Joohyun know she isn’t meant to be with Seungwan?” Seulgi offers up only a sheepish half smile for Sooyoung to cry out in disbelief. “Are you serious, Seulgi? You told Joohyun you _knew_ she and Seungwan weren’t meant to be together back when they had first started dating?” Sooyoung exclaimed, her eyes widening once more.

Seulgi shook her head furiously, “No, not when they were first dating! Of course I didn’t tell her that…Joohyun and I always had this tradition of sorts, ever since high school. After I told her about my ability, Joohyun would ask me if the person she was dating was her soulmate. The answer was always no.”

Seulgi smiled sadly at the taller woman, “I think she was so swept up with Seungwan that she forgot to ask me about the strings. Usually she’d ask me after a month or so, but the question never came. Until she knew for certain Seungwan was planning to propose to her, that is. But by then, it was too late for me to do anything.”

A lone tear spirals off of Seulgi’s face, and smacks against the cold tile floor.

“By then, Joohyun had already decided that she wanted to live the rest of her life with Seungwan, and I felt like I couldn’t get in the way of that.”

More tears, angry, fiery tears, sparked at the sides of Seulgi’s eyes. She choked back the throaty sob that threatened to steal her voice away. She needed to get her whole story out, she felt the need to confess to someone, anyone, and so she forced herself to continue.

 “ _Especially_ not when Joohyun had already told Seungwan ‘yes’ and was wearing an engagement ring on her finger.”

 

**

 

Seulgi is just shy of a few weeks of becoming a junior in high school when she finally reveals to Joohyun her secret ability. They’re spending one of summer’s endless sunny days at one of their favorite cafes, bonding over cups of iced coffee and chatting about where they believed the future would take them.

Naturally, the pair had grown extremely close to each other, and were practically inseparable as the last semester progressed. Despite knowing each other only for a few months, Seulgi had quickly become Joohyun’s favorite out of all of their friends. The older girl gave it her best effort to hide this, but everyone knew it was true.

This would be one of the last few days Seulgi had left to cherish before Joohyun started packing away her belongings for university and moved away from Daegu for good. The older girl had graduated almost a month prior, and had been accepted into her dream college in Seoul.

Despite feeling a tiny bit scared of Joohyun’s moving away, Seulgi eased herself by running her hand along the soft material of string binding them together. It was a subtle action, with her arms crossed over the table so Joohyun couldn’t exactly see where the motion was coming from if she looked for it.

Instantly, Joohyun’s expressionless face wavered with a sort of familiar confusion the moment Seulgi reached her hand out towards the string only she could see. For a brief second, their eyes caught together, Joohyun’s gaze glittering with an emotion Seulgi couldn’t put a name to. After a moment, the younger girl halted the movement all together in fear of being caught.

She would hold her head high, express how proud she was of the older girl for being accepted into such a prestigious university. Seulgi vowed to continue to be Joohyun’s unmoving moral support. Part of the reason why the junior felt so secure in the matter was because no how far, no matter for how long, she knew that she and Joohyun would meet again.

The string wrapped around Seulgi’s pinky would always lead her straight to the other girl’s side, and it was only a matter of time before they saw each other again. The high schooler had no doubt in the strange power the strings possessed, as she’d been witnessed to the way they worked any times before. Seulgi wasn’t worried in the slightest about her future; she already knew what it was – a lifetime with Joohyun by her side.

“Wait a second…so you mean you can see them?” Joohyun murmurs, bewildered and staring at her left pinky after Seulgi finished her confession. The sight made the younger girl giggle uncontrollably. “No, no, Joohyun-ah, it’s on your other hand, silly.” Joohyun stares hard at her right pinky, frowning ever so slightly.

“I wish I could see it,” the graduate whispered underneath her breath, awestruck at the discovery that the red strings did indeed exist. Suddenly, Joohyun lowers her hand until it’s brushing against the younger girl’s on top of the table. Seulgi watches, mesmerized, as their strings wind and weave together instantly, forming a thicker, more compact strand.

 _That’s new_ , Seulgi muses to herself, though she isn’t alarmed by it. She’d never seen something like that happen before with the cords, not even when she’d observed her parents holding hands or when she and Joohyun were at lunch together previously. Perhaps it was something only soulmates could see, if they were granted the sight?

“Can you tell me what it looks like, Seul?” Joohyun mumbles softly, shyly playing with the tips of Seulgi’s motionless fingers, “My string, I mean.” At the older girl’s request, Seulgi wishes she held the power of granting the sight to other people. It would’ve been much easier of a way to go about confessing her love for the older girl, but alas, that wasn’t how the world worked.

Joined together, her and Joohyun’s cords were constantly in motion, the crimson fibers continuously weaving in and out of each other. She was enraptured by the sight of it, too much so to hear Joohyun calling her name for the third time. “Seulgi-ah?” Joohyun whispers, nudging the other girl, breaking Seulgi out of her trance.

Blinking rapidly, the high schooler tears her line of sight away from their fate and looks up to meet Joohyun’s questioning gaze. “Well? What do they look like, Seul?” Seulgi bites her lip, and watches the gleaming black nail polish coating Joohyun’s perfectly manicured fingers.

 She found herself struggling to form a coherent sentence that didn’t include giving herself away, and the last thing that Joohyun needed right now was a confession. She’d broken up with her last boyfriend just before graduation, and it was still fresh on the older girl’s mind.

 There would be a time and a place for her own confession, and Seulgi was certain that it wasn’t now. “Do you have a piece of paper, by any chance?” Seulgi asks quietly, gently pulling their fingers apart, reaching for the pen she always kept clipped in her front shirt pocket, “I can probably draw it better than I can describe it.”

Shaking her head, Joohyun rose from her seat and walked towards the café workers to ask for a sheet of copy paper. Seulgi watched their winding strings grow taught with each step Joohyun took. She averted her eyes only when the older girl turned back around to walk towards her.

After setting the blank printer paper in front of the younger girl, Joohyun elegantly eases herself back into her chair and watches Seulgi expectantly. “Could you set your right hand on the table for me?” Seulgi asks, removing the cap of her pen with a soft click. Obediently, the graduate sets her hand just above the top of the sheet.

Instantly, Seulgi sets off to work, sketching the older girl’s slender pinky finger in black ink. As she’s about to draw the ring of red around it, she remembers in her knapsack she’s carrying a red gel pen. Fishing it out, Seulgi hastily colors in Joohyun’s string, glancing at the older girl’s hand ever so often.

She’s memorized the design of the twine years ago, but she needed to keep up the illusion. After all, her and Joohyun’s strings were a perfect match, and she spent most of her time staring at the strands when they were near each other.

Quietly, Joohyun watches the younger girl, the only sound being the low murmur of the other coffee consumers and the scratching of Seulgi’s pens against the parchment. In the span of just a few minutes, Seulgi is finished with the sketch. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it would do for a description, Seulgi thought to herself. Hesitantly, she slides the drawing across the table for Joohyun to observe.

Relief floods through Seulgi at the sight of Joohyun’s awe inspiring smile take hold of her full, pink lips. “This is so well done, Seulgi…,” the girl trails off in amazement, running her fingers over the freshly dried ink. It makes her heart soar to hear that coming from Joohyun, especially since she knew that the older girl was also complimenting their string as well.

The high schooler tries her best to conceal the furious blush blooming across her fair skin as she mutters her thank you. Joohyun seemed too preoccupied with the drawing to notice the way Seulgi’s face had turned a shade of bright red.

 “Compared to all the strings you’ve ever seen…how does mine rank, Seulgi-ah?” Joohyun asks in a teasing tone, her pitch black pupils gleaming with mischief. Seulgi smiles and tells the older girl the truth, just like she always has, “Yours is the finest fate I’ve ever seen.” The older girl giggled and took a sip of her iced latte, and the pair quickly fall back into a comfortable silence as Joohyun studies the drawing further.

“You’d tell me if you knew, right, Seul?” The beautiful young woman asks abruptly, her eyes searching through Seulgi’s soul for any hint of betrayal. She was folding Seulgi’s sketch up, square by square, to fit into her wallet. “What?” Seulgi asked, tilting her head in confusion. She eyed the way Joohyun was running her fingers along the edges of the paper.

 “You’d tell me who I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with if you saw them, right?” Joohyun restated, worrying her lip between her teeth. At this, Seulgi hesitated slightly, pondering on what to respond with. “It doesn’t matter what I say or do, Joohyun-ah. Destiny works in its own way,” she finally said.

“I understand…but if I were to ask _you_ if the person I was dating was _my_ soulmate, would you tell me?” Joohyun pushes further, leaning slightly towards the younger girl, anticipating Seulgi’s response. The high schooler purses her lips together, debating what her reply would be carefully.

“Let’s just say that none of the guys you’ve dated so far have been the one,” Seulgi finally mutters before turning back to stirring the ice in her drink. Joohyun hums in agreement, “I thought as much. None of them seemed _right_ to me…most of them were kind of jerks, anyways. Also, sometimes I feel this weird…tugging? If you can call it that, at least, on my pinky where you said my string is.”

Seulgi stops stirring her coffee instantly, and tightens her grip on the glass so tightly, her knuckles become white. The older girl is too busy looking down at her own hand to notice the shift in her friend’s demeanor, and continues on in a soft voice, “I don’t feel it _all_ the time, but there’s been more than a few instances where it’s happened.”

The graduate laughs at herself and shakes her head. “It’s almost like my soulmate’s trying to tell me that whoever I’m with _isn’t_ them,” Joohyun murmurs, setting Seulgi’s sketch back down onto the cherry wood table. Seulgi takes a shaky gulp of her coffee in an attempt to cool her flaming cheeks. “I don’t know…is it crazy of me to think that, Seul?”

 With the older girl staring at her with such a helpless expression, Seulgi finds her resolve to keep her secret crumbling. Just as she reaches for Joohyun’s hand, steeling herself to finally confess to the older girl, the café door opens and shuts with the chiming of bells and someone cheerfully calls out Joohyun’s name.

With the moment snatched right under Seulgi’s nose, the high schooler retracts her hands and tries not to reason with herself to not feel as crestfallen as she does. She patiently Joohyun animatedly speak with the newcomer, another recent graduate named Seohyun, as they catch up with each other.

If Seulgi could wait sixteen years before finding Joohyun, she believed she could wait for a little bit longer. She settled back comfortably in her chair and pretended to swipe through her Instagram feed as the two graduates chatted with each other. As long as her string led to Joohyun, Seulgi could wait an eternity for her turn.

Or so the sixteen year old thought.


	4. Weaving The Way

Both Sooyoung’s head and heart were beginning to ache with all of the truths Seulgi had spilled. How could she not have seen it? The way Seulgi would longingly look after Joohyun? How could she have missed how each new boy Joohyun went out with almost seemed to upset Seulgi when they walked around with the older girl during high school?

How she hadn’t ever wondered why Seulgi had acted as though she were practically forced to be a guest at the wedding and take a break from work?

In her mind, she’d always equated Seulgi’s absence at their friend group outings as a testimony to the older woman’s work ethic. Seulgi had become a rather renowned author after she graduated from college. She primarily focused in the horror-thriller genre, and was constantly going back and forth from her editor’s office and the various vacation homes she owned.

The aspiring author had built up and executed a friendly, almost unnoticeable distance between the four of them perfectly. Whenever Seulgi had a new novel coming out, she made sure to send each Sooyoung, Yeri, Seungwan, and Joohyun a copy.

Unbeknownst to them at first, each copy had a personalized twist to it - unlike anything that could be found within the shelves of bookstores. Seulgi liked to call these copies the “outtakes”, but Sooyoung had gotten the inkling long ago that the author simply enjoyed gifting something so unique to each of them, showcasing her thoughtfulness and her love for each of them in a special way. Seulgi had sworn them each to secrecy, making each of them promise not to tell each other what kind of changes their copy had.

Looking back now,  Sooyoung wondered just what Seulgi had written for Joohyun’s eyes only. With the amount of stories Seulgi churned out, none of them were surprised when the author continued to politely decline a good chunk of their night outs together.

They understood Seulgi needed a lot of alone time, filled with peace and quiet in order to brood over her life’s work. Joohyun, of course, was the one who complained the most about Seulgi’s absence.

On the rare occasions Seulgi _did_ happen to join them, the plans were almost always set at a fancy restaurant, and the famous author never failed to be the one to foot the bill as an apology for not being in touch with them as much as she should be.

Sooyoung remembers the somewhat heated argument Seulgi and Joohyun had gotten into during their last outing together. Seungwan was unable to join them, the music company she worked for needed her to fix a few demos for an upcoming girl group and their debut date had been pushed forward faster than they’d anticipated.

 Never before had the taller woman seen Joohyun and Seulgi fight before, and to say the least, both she and Yeri were shocked when it happened.

 

**

 

“You’re coming, right, Seul?” Joohyun asked, swirling the long noodles of her Carbonara dish around her silver fork. The four of them are seated in one of the most well renowned Italian restaurants in Seoul, dressed to the nines in the latest fashions. By then, each of them had grown to become successful young women proud of each other’s successes.

They’d celebrated Joohyun landing her civil engineering position the summer after the eldest woman’s twenty-fifth birthday, two years ago. It had been a private party, housed within a well known club in downtown Seoul. Seungwan and Seulgi were fresh out of college by then, twenty-two year old graduates scrounging up whatever they could find in the job market.

Sooyoung had been in the throes of attempting to graduate a year or two early with her BA in nursing. The twenty year old woman astonished everyone by being able to make it to the occasion despite attending a number of tedious summer lectures.

Yeri, the nineteen year old double major in business and music, also managed to squeeze in enough time in her summer schedule to attend as well. It had been a wonderful night, planned just before the start of Joohyun’s hectic life working as a full time adult.

A year later, the four had gone out for drinks in celebration of Seungwan making the decision to teach private music lessons. They met up at Joohyun and Seungwan’s house, where the excited Canadian woman gave them a tour of her new practice room, where she’d be giving her lessons -  a range of piano to vocal and even to guitar exercises.

Their house was a lovely two story with a picket fence and a large yard, sustained by Joohyun’s hefty paycheck and what would soon be Seungwan’s booming local business. Sooyoung had noticed Seulgi briefly look about the immaculately decorated room, her eyes glazing over the replica of Van Gogh’s _Starry Night_ adorning the ceiling that Joohyun and Seungwan spent many sleepless nights completing.

Not long after that, Seulgi quietly launched her career as a novelist, maintaining her secret for all of three months before the public began raving about the twenty-three year old’s work. Joohyun was the first to find out, naturally.

The eldest had called an “emergency meeting” at one of their usual coffee shop dwellings, and waited patiently with Sooyoung, Yeri, and Seungwan for Seulgi (who had started the bad habit of arriving five minutes late) to seat herself.

Sooyoung remembers how Seulgi’s place across from Joohyun remained intact, after all these years. She briefly recalls thinking about how interesting it was that Seungwan never once interfered with the two best friends’ ritual, and happily maintained her seat beside the older woman without complaint.

Breathless and clearly winded, Seulgi finally slipped into the empty chair across from Joohyun and slung her stylish shoulder bag over her head with apologies bubbling from her lips. But Joohyun didn’t say a single word, merely staring hard into her best friend’s eyes before producing from the depths of her own purse a book about the size of a hand-held tablet.

The civil engineer drops the hardbound novel onto the table in front of Seulgi, with one eyebrow raised. The action caused the four other women to jump slightly, none of them knowing the true reason why Joohyun had arranged their meeting.  

“Care to explain, Seulgi-ah?” Joohyun asked, gesturing at the book with one hand before placing both elbows on the wooden table, propping her chin up on her hands. Sooyoung couldn’t stop staring at the cover, at the name printed in large lettering at the bottom of the colorful sleeve.

 _Kang Seulgi_ was stamped across the book like an official seal, earning gasps to arise from those seated around the table. “ _All Are Welcome_?” Yeri muttered underneath her breath from beside Seulgi, reaching out to flip the novel over to read the back’s inscription.

Four pairs of eyes were all trained on Seulgi, who had gone rigid at the sight of the book when it appeared in Joohyun’s hands. “‘Twenty-one year old Astra Onora believes she’s successfully escaped from her cult upbringing, only to discover that perhaps the coast isn’t as clear as it seems’,” Yeri reads aloud from the inside flap of the cover.

Yeri captured everyone’s attentions except for Joohyun and Seulgi’s. The two women continue to stare at each other with blank expressions, both gauging what the other was thinking. Sooyoung reached for the book, and took it from Yeri’s hands. “‘Kang Seulgi’s debut novel, _All Are Welcome_ , spins a wickedly enthralling tale you won’t be able to put down,’” the nurse quotes from the back cover reviews.

Her eyes widen in disbelief as she scans over the rest of the words, “Number one best selling author, number one international bestseller…., holy _fuck,_ Seulgi!” It’s was Seungwan’s turn to snatch up the hardcover, fingers scrabbling to see for herself proof Seulgi was now a best selling author.

“Oh my god,” the Canadian exclaimed, “That’s _you_!” She was holding the book open to the back flap, jabbing her index finger at the small square photograph printed on the sleeve.

Seulgi took a deep breath, eyes shifting to each of her friends shocked faces, then lets it out slowly, her voice trembling with a mixture of excitement and fear. “I-I was too caught up with everything that was going on during the publishing process that I might’ve, kind of, possibly forgotten to tell you guys about it,” the author murmured sheepishly.

Immediately, Yeri and Sooyoung and Seungwan clapped and whooped their congratulations, slapping Seulgi on the back and ruffling the author’s bangs affectionately, causing Seulgi to break out into an easygoing grin. Joohyun held up her hand, and the motion instantly silenced the table. When she was certain she had everyone’s attention, Joohyun cleared her throat and motioned for Seulgi to take her outstretched hand.

“Seulgi-ah…,” Joohyun trailed off in a tender voice, as if she were suddenly at a loss for words. Sooyoung remembers leaning forward ever so slightly, witnessing the flurry of fingers intertwining, the glittering at the corner of Joohyun’s eyes, with childlike curiosity.

“I’m so, so, so fucking proud of you,” the civil engineer breathed out shakily before bursting out into a chime of laughter, pressing a chaste kiss to Seulgi’s knuckles and releasing the author from her grasp.

If it had been anyone else’s hand Joohyun had kissed, Sooyoung knew Seungwan would’ve shifted uncomfortably - but the Canadian merely looked on with her own joyful smile. It takes Seulgi more than a few seconds to register she needs to say something in reply, and nearly jolts back to life.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” The author rummages around in her bag, her eyes dancing with delight. “ _This_ is the reason why I was late.” Four pairs of eyes watch as Seulgi placed a stack of four copies of _All Are Welcome_ on the table in front of her. The sleeve colors were white, different from the black bound book held within Seungwan’s grip.

A look of confusion passed over Joohyun’s face at the sight. “I already have a copy though, Seul,” the civil engineer said, reaching for the copy nestled within Seungwan’s hands and waving it at the younger woman to emphasize her words.

Excitedly, Seulgi shook her head left to right, “These are _special_ editions, Joohyun-ah, and there’s one for each of you.” She passes them out one by one, checking the front page of each to ensure each novel was received by its specified owner.

 “They’re unique to the ones I’m selling commercially and have a various outcomes,” the author elaborated with a chuckle when she finished passing the books out, “So don’t spread the word around too much.” Without another word, the entire table became fixated on Seulgi’s novel, hungry for the knowledge of what their friend was capable of.

The four young women were so preoccupied with reading Seulgi’s novel, they practically forgot where they were, or that the author herself was seated amongst them. In fact, Seulgi stood up, waited in line to order herself coffee, and returned to find her best friends still immersed in her book.

“Guys?” She called out tentatively, looking around the table to see if any of the other women had acknowledged her. No one paid her any mind, each of the four women merely flipping the freshly printed pages in response.

Laughing quietly to herself at how their coffee date had turned into a makeshift book club meeting, Seulgi to hold of the copy Joohyun had originally brought and tucked herself into her own book, following suit.

Ten minutes later, Sooyoung glanced up from her book to witness Seulgi, who seemed content with pretending to read while actually studying Joohyun’s facial expressions. When she realized she’d been caught, Seulgi blushed, her cheeks dusting with pink before the author shot her a wink and turned the page of her book, seeming to actually be reading this time.

Sooyoung’s successful application for the nurse practitioner position at her hospital proved another reason for all of them to meet up. Seulgi had published her second book by then and was working on her third. The ideas hadn’t stopped flowing from the author’s fingertips, it seemed. She came round her and Yeri’s tiny apartment, uncharacteristically one of the first guests to arrive, with another slew of books, freshly printed, on her arm.

Champagne was poured, and glasses clinked together easily. Despite the dark rings hanging underneath the three women’s eyes, they managed to remain cheerful enough for the occasion. The doorbell kept ringing and ringing, and soon the cozy home was nearly filled to the brim with Yeri and Sooyoung’s friends from work and school and family.

Sooyoung remembers how proud she was of her girlfriend for pulling off such an elaborate party without her knowledge, remembers pressing a kiss to the younger woman’s temple. The two younger women were still more than busy, Yeri was still a full time student and Sooyoung was back and forth from the hospital and had been studying endlessly for the placement exam for the nurse practitioner position.

Everything seemed fine until Seungwan and Joohyun walked in some ten minutes later, cuing Seulgi to pour herself one too many glasses of the bubbling golden liquid. Nearly half way through the party, Joohyun rose and stood in front of a very drunk Seulgi, arms crossed over her chest and frowning at the twenty-three year old.

“I’m taking you home,” Joohyun said in a disapproving tone, reaching out to take Seulgi’s hand. The author was swaying in her cushioned seat, draining what must have been her fifth glass of champagne. Without putting up a fight, Seulgi took the engineer’s hand and allowed herself to be led towards the front door of Sooyoung and Yeri’s apartment.

Before they reached the door, Joohyun stopped by Seungwan and pressed a hasty kiss on the Canadian’s waiting lips. “I’ll see you at home, okay?” Joohyun murmured, flashing a grin at her girlfriend before turning back to the task of leading a very drunk Seulgi out of the apartment. Sooyoung didn’t know what happened after that, but she knew it most likely consisted of Seulgi getting lectured about holding her liquor.

The next time the five of them were able to meet up again, Yeri was going through the process of developing her own record label company. That was just a few months before the wedding invitations were sent out. Before everything had taken a turn for the worse.

“Everything’s still in the works, but it’s progress,” is what Yeri kept saying to everyone, but the nervousness in the younger woman’s voice didn’t keep Sooyoung’s heart swelling with pride at her girlfriend’s toast.

That night, Yeri seemed more jittery than usual. Sooyoung had never really seen her girlfriend in such a state before, and was feeling a bit nervous. Perhaps it was because of how fast everything was moving with the new company, she’d overheard that Yeri and her team were planning to launch everything in the following weeks.

“Are you okay, honey?” She murmured into the shorter woman’s ear near the end of the party, still concerned at how tense her girlfriend seemed. At this, Yeri let out a deep breath. Seulgi and Seungwan were busy mixing drinks for themselves in the kitchen.

Joohyun was outside taking a business call, and she and Yeri were lounging in the living room. It was clear that the night was coming to an end after a joyous amount of celebration.

“Sooyoung-ah...I want to give you everything I possibly can in this lifetime,” Yeri said at last, her deep voice overflowing with love. The business woman was slowly lowering herself on one knee to the plush carpeting of the apartment. At her girlfriend’s actions, Sooyoung felt her heart creep up inside her throat.

The taller woman discovered it was hard for her to swallow, to even comprehend what was happening. “I want to give you a house, a new car, that red dress you wouldn’t shut up about for weeks…,” Yeri trails off as they share a bout of laughter, her knee resting gently on the floor.

She peers up at Sooyoung with a smile, “Because of my company, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the future holds. _Our_ future, Sooyoung-ah. It made me realize that I want to spend the rest of my life with you by my side...only if you want to, though!”

The nurse practitioner's hands covered her gaping mouth, shell shocked by Yeri’s sudden speech. She watched as her girlfriend reached for her back jean’s pocket, saw the flicker of doubt in Yeri’s eyes as she rummaged for the ring box. “Park Sooyoung…,” Yeri murmured, matching the grin that had washed over the taller woman’s features, “Will you marry me?”

At that exact moment, Seulgi, Seungwan, _and_ Joohyun all walked back into the room unnoticed the nurse practitioner. Each of them were armed with a small, hand-held confetti popper. When Sooyoung finally found her voice again, she bent down and pressed a hard kiss to her girlfriend’s mouth. “Yes, yes, you idiot, I’ll marry you!”

Just as Yeri slipped on Sooyoung’s engagement ring, their three friends sent the confetti flying with a succession of loud bangs. “Congratulations love birds!” Seungwan whooped as she joined in on Seulgi and Joohyun’s cheers. The five of them formed a group huddle in the middle of the living room, giggling and grinning together.

 

**

 

While it was true that each of the young women had grown so much since they’d graduated from both high school and college, but their bond had remained inseparable.

“You’re coming, right, Seul?” The tone of the experienced civil engineer’s voice seemed calculated, careful, so unlike Joohyun to Sooyoung that the sound had made her frown. Tension filled the air at the mention of Joohyun and Seungwan’s wedding invitations, which had been sent out the week prior.

When she looked over, however, Joohyun’s visage remained one of completely calm and tranquility, giving away no sign of the tenseness they had heard. Sooyoung wrote off the oddity due to the increasing proximity of the wedding date, and tucked back into her own meal.

Across from herself, Yeri popped another slice of Focaccia into her mouth, blissfully unaware of the tension growing between the two women seated beside them.

Seulgi was taking an awful long time to reply, Sooyoung noted, chewing at her steak nervously as her eyes darted to the aforementioned woman. She took in the sight of the author’s rigid form. The twenty-five year old’s posture had become noticeably tense, as if Joohyun’s words had scorched her. Clearing her throat, Seulgi took a restrained sip of her ice water, and dipped her head ever so slightly.

“Seul?” Joohyun asked again, her tone clipped. Sooyoung didn’t blame the shortness of Joohyun’s temper. Seulgi had gotten harder for them to reach out to ever since Seungwan had announced her and Joohyun’s engagement that spring. Even before that, the author had the tendency to check out for a few days without warning - becoming unresponsive to texts, not returning phone calls, and the like.

But now, it was almost as though Seulgi were some sort of phantom, ghosting through their lives as if she were hardly there. It was almost as if the person sitting beside her was a shade of the person she knew. “I don’t know, Hyun,” Seulgi sighed finally, setting down her glass with the soft clink of the ice cubes.

“You _know_ I’m finalizing my next couple of drafts and my deadline is coming up next month…,” the author trailed off, shrugging her shoulders and picking back up her fork and knife. It didn’t go unnoticed by any of them seated at the table how Seulgi refused to look up and meet Joohyun’s challenging gaze.

“Seulgi.” Quiet, pleading, that’s how Joohyun’s voice sounded as it reached their ears, so unlike anything they’d ever heard before. Sooyoung watched as Seulgi solemnly lifted her head, confused as to why Seulgi was reluctant to agree to come to the wedding.

She’d sent her and Yeri’s confirmation the same day they received the invite in the mail, giddy with excitement for the couple. It had been six years, after all, everyone had been betting when Seungwan and Joohyun would finally tie the knot.

There were dark rings underneath Seulgi’s eyes, noticeable only after second glance, but there all the same. In fact, the author seemed more than a little bit off, thinner than Sooyoung remembered, more solemn and diluted than before. If Sooyoung had to guess, perhaps Seulgi was having trouble with her latest series, spending endless nights pouring over her outlines.

 If only she had known the half of it.

“Have you even opened it?” Joohyun asked, searching through Seulgi’s dim eyes for an answer. When she received no verbal response, she sighed tilted her head to the side, “I’m asking you to be my maid of honor, Seulgi. You have to come.” Seulgi winced then, out of guilt perhaps, Sooyoung thought. It wasn’t shocking news to her that Joohyun had chosen Seulgi to be her maid of honor.

In fact, all of them had been expecting it. No one had been there for Joohyun as much as Seulgi had, for as long as Seulgi had before, the matter was a complete no brainer. “You remember what I asked you before, right?” Joohyun prompts again, reaching out to hold Seulgi’s hand over the table. Seulgi’s eyes trained themselves on their intertwining fingers, as if they were the most interesting thing in the world in that moment.

“I remember,” Seulgi whispered, still staring at their hands. Her voice sounded hollow, as though she were a robot speaking a pre-programmed speech, devoid of any emotion.

Back then, Sooyoung hadn’t known about the strings, hadn’t been able to see that Seulgi was staring at the thin red line that connected her with Joohyun, hadn’t known that while Seulgi _was_ working on another book, her deadline was far off and that Seulgi was merely tearing herself up inside about the wedding.

“I’ll be there. I swear I will be. You can count on me, Hyun,” Seulgi sighed before untangling herself from the older woman’s grasp and picking up her own utensils again. Joohyun was too relieved to see any of these signs, any of the oddities within their friend, and Sooyoung had been oblivious in the moment herself.

None of them knew the true cause of Seulgi’s pain.

 

**

 

Sooyoung sighed as she recalled that outing just before the wedding. To think, Seulgi knew right from the start, from the moment they met, that they were meant to be together, but the timing was always off…that took grit, and a whole fucking lot of it. The younger woman’s respect for Seulgi soared, then plummeted, and soared again in a roller coaster wave of emotions for her friend.

How could someone so strong, so resolute in their belief of the strings, in the fact that they had found their soulmate – just give them away? Cutting the strings? Could Seulgi even do that? Had she tried before? The racing procession of her thoughts caused her headache almost to worsen, and she put a hand to her temple.

The idea that Seulgi had always known, since they were practically children, boggled Sooyoung’s mind completely. For a long time, instead of replying to Seulgi’s rhetorical question, she watched Seulgi’s string instead, lost in her thoughts. She drifted back to when they were young, much younger than they were now.

 She did her best to wrack her brain for information, to wrap her head around some kind of number representing how long they’d known each other for, how long Seulgi had kept her secret from Joohyun – from all of them.

Seulgi was sixteen when she met Sooyoung and Joohyun for the first time. Joohyun had been eighteen by then…or was it nineteen? Seungwan had been in their friend group for almost seven years, having been introduced to Seulgi in her freshman year of college. Even then, Seulgi had known, had silently known and had hidden her secret, knowing that the timing wasn’t right for either of them.

Altogether, Sooyoung could recall a solid nine years of friendship going on ten, filled with endless happy memories and adventures throughout their high school and college years.

And to think, after all these years, Seungwan and Joohyun weren’t meant for each other was almost unbelievable – yet Sooyoung had seen Joohyun and Seulgi’s string with her own eyes. No wonder Seulgi had been so distressed once the engagement had been announced, the circles underneath the author’s eyes hadn’t been caused by long nights spent slaving away at work.

“Tell me how you met Seungwan,” Sooyoung says at last, nibbling her thumbnail. She was beginning to understand the scope of Seulgi’s perspective, but they were far from completing the full picture that made up Seulgi and Joohyun’s expansive story. “How did Joohyun ask you if Seungwan was the one?”

 “Alright,” Seulgi shrugs, though she knows she’s recounting a story Sooyoung’s probably heard before. “Bear with me on this one,” the author murmured, “this one’s a doozy.”

 

**

  

“Is it Seungwan?” Joohyun had asked suddenly on an autumn afternoon, a little over a year after Seulgi first moved to Seoul. She and Seulgi are walking out of the humanities building together after Seulgi had taken a midterm, basking in the fresh air and crinkling leaves.

Seulgi feels her blood ice over at the mention of Joohyun’s current lover, the beautiful music major who hailed from Canada. “What?” Seulgi asked with a nervous laugh, shifting the uncomfortable weight of her backpack on her shoulders.

She’s nineteen years old by then and a sophomore in college, and Joohyun is nearing twenty-two and her graduation date. Nothing has changed between them other than the years they’ve spent by each other’s side. Seulgi had remained dedicated to the idea of following her soulmate to Seoul, and Joohyun was accomplishing her dreams as an engineering major.

“Come on, Seul,” Joohyun grins as they step outside, stretching her cramped limbs. The dying sunlight illuminates the older woman’s chestnut colored eyes, and Seulgi begins to feel the familiar sensation of heartbreak radiating through her the longer she gazed into them.

“You know what I mean! Is Seungwan _the one_ for me?” Seulgi bit her lip nervously as they walked the familiar path towards one of the university’s bus stops. It seemed like decades since Joohyun had last asked her that same question, since they’d sat in the café of their hometown, smiling at each other over their coffees and Seulgi had very nearly confessed.

 

 **

 

Words couldn’t describe the way Seulgi had felt when Joohyun introduced Seungwan to her. It had been on the second day Seulgi since moved in to her dorm, coincidentally just a few doors down from where Joohyun had lived as a freshman, when Seulgi made the Canadian’s acquaintance.

There’s a plethora of names for the how Seulgi felt when Joohyun rapped her knuckles on Seulgi’s open door. She straightens her aching back, strained from unpacking and decorating her side of the barren room at the intruding sound.

When she whirls around to find Joohyun leaning against the threshold, arms over her chest and one leg crossed over the other, Seulgi breaks out into a wide grin. She hadn’t noticed the way the strands of red on her right pinky had begun twisting a few moments ago, but as soon as she took a step towards the older woman, the strings seemed to go haywire.

Seulgi’s steps mindlessly followed the pencil thin trail towards her soulmate, transfixed by Joohyun’s unchanged beauty. “Welcome to Seoul National, Seulgi-ah,” the young woman had said, her voice velvet and her smile sunshine.

She’d just pulled Joohyun into a warm embrace when someone stepped up behind the older woman. At the sound of approaching footsteps, Seulgi’s grip on her soulmate’s shoulders loosened, and her eyes snapped open to catch sight of the stranger timidly approaching them.

Joohyun’s the first to pull away, twirling around to greet the newcomer by pressing a kiss to the girl’s round cheek. “I thought I told you I’d be down in just a second, Wannie?” Joohyun murmured into the girl’s ear, glancing at Seulgi, who was curiously eyeing the two of them.

  The new girl, Wannie, was almost as pretty as Joohyun herself. She had long, wavy blonde locks that were tousled perfectly, unblemished skin, and a winning smile. If Seulgi hadn’t known her string led to Joohyun, she would’ve swooned at the sight of her, but instead, she maintained a straight face.

She’d seen that look in Joohyun’s eyes countless times before, and she braced herself for what was to no doubt come next. “Seulgi-yah, this is my girlfriend, Seungwan,” Joohyun said, pushing Seungwan forward ever so slightly so that she and Seulgi were face to face with each other.

Seulgi noted the way she towered over the smaller woman with ease, how Seungwan had to tilt her head back a little in order to meet her eye. “Well…I suppose this had to happen sooner or later,” Joohyun muttered to herself, taking a deep breath.

 “Seungwan, meet my best friend, Kang Seulgi,” Joohyun said, coupled with a nervous smile. It was clear that the college junior was oblivious to Seungwan’s obvious shyness and Seulgi’s internal struggle of keeping herself from bursting into tears.

Finally, Seungwan stuck out her hand towards Seulgi. There was an apologetic expression on her face, as if to say, _Truce?_ Despite the circumstances, Seulgi couldn’t bring herself to be angry at either Joohyun or Seungwan in that moment.

 Seulgi grasped Seungwan’s right hand firmly in her own, shaking the shorter woman’s hand up and down and smiling with as much gusto as she could manage. She watched her and Joohyun’s string bounce up and down in the air with each rise and fall of their arms.

“It’s nice to meet you, Seungwan,” she said in a slightly monotone voice. After all this time, Seulgi shouldn’t have been surprised to discover Joohyun was dating someone else for the umpteenth time. Before her parents had dropped her off, Seulgi had spent most of the long drive envisioning what she would say to the older girl.

She could hardly stand containing her eagerness to tell Joohyun the truth ever since she learned she’d gotten accepted at Joohyun’s college as well. Seoul National University didn’t just mean freedom, it meant one step closer to spending the rest of her days with the one person she loved in the most: Bae Joohyun.

Once Seulgi and Seungwan allowed their hands to drop, the shorter woman retreated to Joohyun’s side. Seulgi slouched in the doorway while the couple intertwined their fingers, eyes flicking in between the two of them as if trying to gauge exactly how long they’d been together.

 “It was nice of you to check in on me, Hyun,” she uttered at last, doing her best to break the nervous tension between the three of them. “Of course!” Joohyun quickly piped up, “Do you want to take a little tour of the place? I’ve got loads of free time today!”

The younger woman would have jumped at the offer, if not for Seungwan’s lingering presence. She got the inkling feeling that Seungwan would be joining her and Joohyun, no matter where they went.

The idea of Joohyun’s new girlfriend tagging along for the ride definitely discouraged Seulgi from the thought of catching up the past two years without the older girl. Her mood was souring by the second at the notion of her and Joohyun talking over lunch, only to be interrupted by Seungwan spoon feeding Joohyun a bite of rice or fixing a stray strand of hair.

“Thanks, but maybe later,” Seulgi offered, “I should probably unpack all my stuff first.” She made a show of stretching out her long arms and yawning behind a cupped hand. “Besides,” she said in her best sleepy voice, “the long drive up here took a lot out of me. I’m probably just going to nap after I finish up here.”

Joohyun laughed, the sound of steadily ringing chimes, and Seulgi felt her heart sink as she watched the older woman’s right hand grip at Seungwan’s shoulders for support. The college junior sent her and Seulgi’s string of fate soaring into the air, brushing against the ceiling of the dorm’s hallway.

Seulgi followed the motion briefly, for the first time wondering if her and Joohyun’s time would ever come, when a hand came to rest on her bicep. The sound of Seungwan’s faint footsteps and the click of the staircase door signaled that Seulgi and Joohyun were alone.

“I’m sorry,” Joohyun mumbled sheepishly, mirroring Seulgi’s stance on the other side of the room’s threshold. “I thought I told Wannie to wait for me in the lobby…I wasn’t planning on having you meet her so soon,” the older woman explained, as if she could sense Seulgi’s displeasure.

“That’s alright,” Seulgi replies, quick to break out in a genuine smile and even quicker to forgive. Joohyun’s hand slips off of Seulgi’s arm and the older woman sighs, wistfully gazing in the direction Seungwan had walked off to. “She’s very pretty, Hyun,” Seulgi compliments, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“She really is, isn’t she?” Joohyun mumbles underneath her breath, staring hard at the shut staircase door. “You’re not…freaked out?” The older woman asks warily, eyeing Seulgi with a hardened look. “Why would I be, Hyun?” Seulgi scoffed, surprised at her best friend’s hesitancy.

Joohyun ran another hand through her hair and frowned, “I don’t know…I mean I guess I never told you that I was gay.” Seulgi smiles sweetly at the shorter woman, her eyes softening.

“I think I always knew, if it makes you feel better,” she says.

Joohyun rolls her eyes and playfully smacks Seulgi on the shoulder. Despite the stinging sensation radiating through her arm, Seulgi giggles. “So,” Joohyun drawls out with a giant grin.

There’s a knowing glint to her glittering eyes as she says, “Are you sure you aren’t game for a tour, Seul? I already told Wannie she needed to beat it so we could have the whole day for ourselves.” Seulgi can’t contain how overjoyed she is at the older woman’s words.

She shakes her head in disbelief as giggled to herself. “You know me too well,” the freshman sighed. She turned to grab her room key off of the barren wooden desk propped up against the wall beside her bed and shut the door behind her.

Then she turned to loop her hand through Joohyun’s waiting arm and allowing the older woman to tow her down the steps of her dorm’s stairwell. She pretends not to notice the way the red twine between them tightens as the distance between both of the right hands becomes nonexistent.

“Nah,” Joohyun teases as they strut out of the building arm in arm with each other.

 “I know you just well enough, Seul.”

 

**

 

“Seul?” Joohyun repeated, her voice melding with the rustle of the dead leaves brushing across the sidewalk. “Oh, sorry,” Seulgi said, trying to think of how to put her words just right to soften the blow she was about to give to the older woman. So much had happened, shifted, transformed, it was almost hard to wrap her head around.

“I know it’s so soon,” Joohyun interrupts before Seulgi has the chance to say anything, “but I think I’d be okay with dating Seungwan even if she isn’t my soulmate...you know? Is that allowed?” Seulgi’s mouth snaps shut, surprised at Joohyun’s sudden confession.

“I mean, I don’t know,” Seulgi answered, pretending to look up at the sky thoughtfully in hopes Joohyun was too distracted to remember Seulgi still hadn’t answered her question.

A hand comes flying across her shoulder, coupled with a loud, “Yah!?!” The smack echoes throughout the empty courtyard, and Seulgi winces in pain. “Okay, okay, _jesus_!” She takes a long look at Joohyun, rubbing her smarting arm as she does so. “Are you sure you want to know, Hyun-ah?” The taller woman asks solemnly, already feeling dread flood through her veins.

She notices how hard Joohyun’s staring at her, as though the engineering major was trying to decipher the secret language of Seulgi’s facial expressions. A buzzing breaks their moment, Joohyun’s phone wails like a newborn child as she produces it from her back jeans pocket with an evident frown. “Can we talk about this later, Seul? This is pretty urgent,” Joohyun asks, clutching the device tightly in her hands.

When Seulgi nods in affirmation, Joohyun shoots her a small smile as she backs away. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow then, I’ve got to head over to the tutoring center in the library, they need me to pick up a shift in thirty minutes,” the engineering major says.

Seulgi watches the shorter woman go for a moment before sighing and slowly starting her way again towards the direction of the bus station. “Hey, Seul!” Joohyun yells, a considerable distance away despite it only having been twenty seconds.

“What is it?” Seulgi yelled back, cupping her hands around her mouth to help carry the sound of her voice. Suddenly, she felt worried. Perhaps Joohyun had changed her mind after all. A rush of jitters spiraled through her. She didn’t particularly feel like talking about something with such drastic consequences at the top of her lungs.

“Don’t tell me, okay? Don’t tell me unless I ask again, alright?” Joohyun screams back in reply, waving her arms above her head childishly. “I don’t want to know quite yet!” She’s grinning from ear to ear, and Seulgi feels her heart squeeze then beat slowly. She knew she was in love with her, she was filled with so much love it nearly made her sick to her stomach.

What more could Seulgi have done but nod in agreement with her soulmate’s wishes, turn her back, and keep walking away?


	5. The Strongest Bond

“Hold up. Let me get this straight,” Sooyoung says, waving her hands up to stop Seulgi’s weaving story. “When did Joohyun _actually_ have you tell her Seungwan wasn’t her soulmate? She told you she didn’t want to know right before she graduated, right? So when did you _really_ tell her?”

She watches the author bite her lip, tearing the supple flesh of her mouth between her canine teeth. Sooyoung was doing her best to follow the timeline of Seulgi’s tale, but all of the pieces hadn’t been aligned yet, and she had to know the full picture, she had to understand what caused Seulgi to hold her tongue for so many years.

“The night I got trashed at your nurse practitioner party...she took me home, remember?” Seulgi asks, leaning against the sink with her arms crossed over her chest. “It had been just a few months after she and Seungwan announced their engagement to us.”

Sooyoung nodded, she remembered quite clearly. “She stayed over at my place until she was sure I’d sobered up enough. Then, she asked me if Seungwan was the one. Now that she knew Seungwan wanted to marry her, and now that they wanted to go through with the final stage.”

The author runs a hand over her weary features, poorly trying to cover up the fact that she was struggling to maintain a straight face. The story telling was taking a toll on her, Sooyoung could tell. She remained mum, silently urging Seulgi to continue.

“She seemed so _happy_ about it, Sooyoung-ah...she kept talking about how we were the first ones she’d told so far. Not even her parents knew at that point, they were still waiting to see their reactions.” Seulgi’s eyes fall to the tile floor, tearing up once more.

“I’d never seen her so excited, so _alive_ before. I felt like cracking open another bottle of champagne right then and there and drowning myself in alcohol again, I didn’t want to think about it. I’d done a good job of making myself scarce after they broke the news, but Joohyun wanted someone to confide in.”

“I couldn’t break down while she was around. I knew what she wanted from me.” Seulgi’s voice turned bitter, eyes trained down to the ground. “She wanted to use my powers, she wanted to bind her string with Seungwan’s. Even after I told her they weren’t meant for each other, she begged for me to agree.”

 

**

 

“Come on, Seul, we’re almost there.” Joohyun had an arm wrapped around Seulgi’s waist and was practically dragging the younger woman up the front porch of Seulgi’s house. Grunting, Joohyun propped Seulgi’s limp frame against the door while she rummaged for Seulgi’s house keys.

The drunk woman’s eyes were glazing over, and there was no doubt she would’ve fallen asleep there had Joohyun left her at Sooyoung and Yeri’s apartment party. “Thank god you’re not too heavy,” Joohyun muttered to herself. She draped Seulgi’s arm around her neck and pulled the younger woman into an upright position.

Kicking the door open with her foot, Joohyun led them inside the dark interior of the house. Flicking on the light switch, Joohyun locked the door behind them and then turned to face the living room. She nearly dropped Seulgi onto the floor, shocked at the shambles of living space surrounding her.

“Well, I know what I’m going to be doing after I get you to bed,” the civil engineer muttered underneath her breath, glancing around the room while whistling. The interior of Seulgi’s home was in almost complete disarray, something entirely uncharacteristic about the author. It looked like someone had broken in and ransacked the place.

Joohyun stared at the discarded fast food wrappers, the jumbles and piles of loose leaf printer paper scattered across the floor and furniture, the unwashed plates and cups littering the furniture. “I’ve been so busy lately…,” Seulgi mustered up for an excuse, swallowing thickly.

She felt embarrassed at the state of her house. She hadn’t wanted Joohyun to see her like this, to catch a glimpse of just how much of a mess she was at the moment. Seulgi’s words were still slurring, but she felt the need to explain herself to the older woman. “Too tired.”

Joohyun nods her head slowly at Seulgi’s words, urging the author to take small baby steps with her in the direction of Seulgi’s bed room. Seulgi’s feet dragged across the dusty hardwood floor, head lolling onto Joohyun’s shoulder. The older woman tears her eyes away from the mess, her heart beginning to pound with worry.

“I know you have been, Seul, I know you have,” Joohyun responds in a soothing tone, reaching out to twist the doorknob of Seulgi’s bedroom. Luckily, the author’s bedroom was unscathed from the chaos that consumed the houses’ other rooms. _Had Seulgi been sleeping on the couch, then? Had she been sleeping at all?_

Carefully, Joohyun walked them over to the queen sized bed situated in the center of the room and laid Seulgi as gently as she could down on top of it. For a moment, Joohyun stared down at her, studying the younger woman’s limp figure. Seulgi’s eyes were hazy and unfocused, seeing but unseeing. Another wave of nausea and worry washed over Joohyun.

“You know, I don’t remember your writing spells ever causing you to forget to clean up after yourself before...,” the older woman murmurs, mostly to herself. She stood next to the bed, massaging her temples. Even when they were in college, Seulgi hadn’t been the type of girl to let loose and party once in a while.

 Seulgi merely stared up at her silently, her mind and body still hazy from the champagne. Joohyun looked like an angel in the dim light of her bedside lamp, an untouchable goddess. “Alright, here’s what’s gonna happen, okay, Seul? Game plan time.”

The mattress dips, and there’s a hand weaving through Seulgi’s tousled locks, teasing in and out of the tangles of her dark hair. The aroma of Joohyun’s Guerlain perfume wafts from the inside of her wrist as she works through Seulgi’s hair.

The author stares up at Joohyun, a hazy outline of long black hair and pale skin, with enough adoration to stop anyone dead in their tracks. Even when she’s drunk, Seulgi can tell she’s beautiful. Joohyun, however, remained lost in thought while surveying the room, trying to remember if she knew where Seulgi kept her cleaning supplies.

“I’m going to draw you a nice hot bath, then I’ll whip up your favorite midnight snack while I clean your apartment. Then, after _that_ , we’re going to have a nice long chat. How’s that sound, hm?” Her fingers carefully untangle themselves from the silky strands of Seulgi’s hair, and the dip in the bed evens out as Joohyun stands, clapping her hands together.

“That should be enough time for you to sober up a little before we talk, right, Seul?” A warm palm settles itself across Seulgi’s forehead, causing the author’s eyelashes to flutter ever so slightly. The author doesn’t move an inch from where she’s flopped down onto her mattress. She feels the cool sensation of the engagement ring against her skin and feels sick.

Seulgi feels tempted to sink into the warm depths of her duvet and sleep the rest of the night off. The corner of her mouth twitches, but the urge to respond to Joohyun fades as the beginnings of slumber loom over her. Joohyun’s touch was more than enough comfort alone for Seulgi to persuade her tired body to remain lying there.

The author began quickly drifting off, even with Joohyun patiently waiting for her answer. For a while, the hand remains on her forehead, stroking tenderly at the baby hairs of her bangs, waiting. Eventually Seulgi becomes too tired to even think about opening her eyes.

Joohyun sighed quietly to herself when she looked down and took in the sight before her. Deep down, Joohyun knew Seungwan was most likely still up, no doubt waiting for her at home. She imagined the Canadian sitting up in their bed, reading a paperback novel and trying not to glance at her phone every few minutes to check for a text from her.

 _Seungwan_. Joohyun’s girlfriend of nearly six years, who had just proposed, who had been everything Joohyun had ever dreamed of in a partner. _Home_. A place where she and Seungwan thrived together while Seulgi seemed to almost wither away. They were happy together, her and Seungwan. That’s what Joohyun kept telling herself.

Doubt stabbed at Joohyun’s heart. She regretted not having Seulgi tell her straightforwardly, back in college, if Seungwan was really her soulmate or not. What if she’d just six years with someone she wasn’t meant to be with? Joohyun bit her lip. But she felt so sure about Seungwan, the Canadian was the perfect partner.

She was warm, she was caring, she was understanding. Not to mention the fact that she could cook up a storm in the kitchen, always managed to sweep Joohyun off her feet over and over again. They _were_ happy. But there was a tiny voice whispering in the back of her head, reminding Joohyun of her doubts over and over again.

Seulgi hadn’t told her if Seungwan was the one yet, and Joohyun _had_ to know. After years of searching, had she finally found her soulmate? Ever since Seungwan popped the question, Joohyun felt a little on edge. It was torturing her from the inside out. She’d asked Seungwan for time, just a little bit of time, so she could think.

Graciously, Seungwan agreed without a beat of hesitation. At her girlfriend’s matured understanding, Joohyun felt yet another surge of adoration for her, but it was quickly masked be her fears. Seungwan truly was an amazing partner...so why was she still hesitating?

They were madly in love, right? Joohyun had said yes the day after Seungwan asked her to marry her, refusing to be plagued by her childish worries. Yet it was still nagging at the engineer.

Realizing that Seulgi had fallen fast asleep in the midst of being lost in her own thoughts, Joohyun’s hand came to a standstill. The civil engineer peered down at the younger woman, taking in the sight of her slumbering best friend, the glittering of the gems lining her finger.

Seulgi was beautiful, even more so now that the light was soft enough to erase the bags beneath her flashing eyes and highlight the fairness of her skin. But there was a weariness to her youthful, sharp features. Something was amiss here, Joohyun just didn’t know what it was yet.

“What am I going to do with you, Seul?” Joohyun murmured, shaking her head at the sight of the sleeping woman. She resisted the urge to run another hand through Seulgi’s long, flowing hair as it spilled out from beneath her. The silky strands had been so soft, soothing to the touch, even. “You haven’t even taken off your _shoes_ yet _,_ silly.”

Joohyun pulled out her cell phone and typed out an apology to Seungwan. In couple sentences, Joohyun that she would be staying the night at the author’s house because Seulgi needed her more than she’d anticipated. It looked like Seulgi wouldn’t be waking up any time soon, and she had a huge favor to ask of Seulgi.

A favor so immense that it would have to wait until the morning to be discussed, when Joohyun was sure the younger woman was sober. As soon as she sent the text, Joohyun flicked her phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and then pressed the device face-down on Seulgi’s bedside table.

She knew Seungwan would be fine with her staying over. After a moment, Joohyun sighed. Idly, she wondered if it were normal to be ignoring your future wife as much as she was now. There was something just a little unsettling, even to her, about how much Seungwan didn’t affect her sometimes.

Like now, when she was staring at her best friend intently, as if willing her to wake up, taking in every detail of her features. Seungwan had just barely come to her mind, and Joohyun had barely remembered to notify her fiance in the change in plans.

“Really, what _am_ I going to do with you, Seul?” Joohyun mumbled as she snapped out of it. Slowly, the older woman got up and began moving towards Seulgi’s dresser to search for pajamas. Regardless of what Seungwan’s answer would be, Joohyun was staying the night.

She rummaged around the drawers for a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, then ducked into the bathroom connected to the bed room in order to change and freshen up. The clothes held the comforting scent that lingered around the author, a mixture of rich perfume and spice.

Joohyun had a toothbrush stowed away in the confines of Seulgi’s medicine cabinet, and with a soft sigh, she pulled it out. It had been a while since she’d stayed over at Seulgi’s, hadn’t it? Enough time had passed for the layout of the bathroom to change up, for Joohyun to feel a little disoriented in a place she considered her second home.

But that was to be expected by two young adults with full time job obligations, right? Seulgi _couldn’t_ be ignoring her. She and Seulgi couldn’t always be together, but lately it felt like they were hardly seeing each other.

After Seungwan’s proposal, Seulgi seemed to be dedicating more and more time towards the development of her fictional plots rather than the further development of her actual real life friendships. But maybe that was just a figment of Joohyun’s imagination.

She could imagine how difficult it must be to have to recapture the world’s attention with the power of written word. Seulgi was in charge of creating vast worlds and universes for her readers to romp around and lose themselves in. It took a painstakingly long amount of time to churn out the amount of books Seulgi had.

Despite knowing the reason behind why Seulgi was missing out on so many of their outings together, Joohyun couldn’t help but sense there was something off about her best friend. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it yet, but she believed that she was inching closer to the truth.

Hastily, Joohyun washed her face and changed into Seulgi’s spare clothes. When she made her way back into Seulgi’s room, she found the younger woman was tugging off her shoes with sluggish fingers. Wordlessly, Joohyun kneeled in front of Seulgi’s slumped figure and undid the knots of the shoelaces with ease.

“Thank you,” Seulgi murmured, sounding slightly sobered up. Her eyes were still glazed and her lips were tugged up into a half smile. The sight made Joohyun laugh, then roll her eyes. It felt like they were two teenagers again, readying themselves for a sleepover at Seulgi’s house over a free weekend.

“You know, sometimes I wish we grew up together when we were younger,” Joohyun confessed with a sad chuckle, speaking her mind openly. She set Seulgi’s shoes by the foot of the bed and gazed up at the younger woman while still kneeling on the floor. “I bet we would’ve had the best sleepover parties if we had.”

She watches as the younger woman stands from the bed, her stance wobbly as she picks her way across the room to her closet. “That’s okay,” Seulgi answered as she slowly opened one of her dresser drawers. She lurched as she shifted through the dresser. “I know we’re going to grow old and gray together one day.”

Seulgi glances over her shoulder and locks eyes with Joohyun, her tone more serious than Joohyun had heard before. “We’ve got all the time in the world, Joohyun-ah,” she said as she picked through her clothes for her pajamas. Her voice was nothing like the way Joohyun was used to hearing it.

The author was completely monotone, her voice as flat as a pancake as her lips moved. It was as if the life had been sucked out of her lean frame, never to return again. Like Seulgi was reciting facts straight from an encyclopedia. “Our time will come,” the author continued. “I’ve always had faith that it will.”

Joohyun feels her heart freeze, then warm over, melting in her ribcage like a marshmallow left too long in the flame. _Our time will come._ Seulgi’s mysterious words still came out of her mouth slow, as if she’d chewed on them. What could it all mean?

“I don’t remember you being the philosophical kind of drunk, but I guess a lot of things have changed since college,” Joohyun murmurs underneath her breath. Knowing that Seulgi was still under the influence, Joohyun merely shook off her best friend’s odd choice of words as an undying proclamation of their friendship.

“Alright, sleepy head,” Joohyun chuckled, rising from the floor. She carefully led Seulgi back to the bed, helping to ensure the younger woman didn’t losing her balance. “Let’s get you to bed, huh?” She eases Seulgi underneath the covers, tucking the younger woman in securely before moving over to her own side of the mattress.

As Seulgi squirms around for a comfortable position, Joohyun reaches over and turns off the lights. For a moment, there’s nothing but the flash of pitch black around them and the sound and sensation of Seulgi writhing beneath the sheets.

She doesn’t flinch when she feels the younger woman reach out slip an arm around her waist a moment later, tugging Joohyun closer to her. The heat of Seulgi’s body is comfortable, as if they’d done this before - sleeping in each other’s arms without batting an eyelash.

Joohyun’s too tired to protest against the younger woman’s touch. She settles herself against Seulgi’s front, the little spoon for tonight’s sleepover. Her idea of tidying the author’s house would have to wait until the next morning. Seulgi had promptly snuggled up against the crook of her neck and fell asleep in two seconds flat.

Joohyun could feel it in the way the author’s arms unclenched around her, in the slowed breathing fanning against the skin of her neck, the gentle rise and fall of Seulgi’s chest behind her. Seulgi was out like a light, and Joohyun found herself quickly falling asleep in the author’s arms, all of her worries dying away.

 

**

 

“Seul, I have to tell you something.” Joohyun pursed her lips together as she took a bite out of her vegetable omelette. Not only had she woken up early that morning to clear up most of Seulgi’s house, Joohyun also visited the local supermarket.

Once she’d cleared the kitchen with a little bit of elbow grease and determination, she made her way over to the fridge only to discover Seulgi didn’t have a single edible meal ready on hand. Joohyun decided to get an armful of ingredients to whip them up a quick breakfast, making sure to stock the kitchen cupboards with snacks she deemed healthy enough.

Seulgi grunted over her plate of scrambled eggs and sausage links Joohyun had set in front of her. She inhaled her mug of tea and eagerly refilled it, unaware to the intensity of Joohyun’s stare. “What’s that, Hyun-ah? Thanks for staying the night, by the way, and for making breakfast.”

Seulgi waved her fork down at the meal with a genuine smile. “Everything’s delicious! But I know Seungwan-ah was probably worried about you.” She glances up after she downs her second drink, finally meeting Joohyun’s eye. The older woman was picking at half of her meal, biting her lip, looking as if she were worried sick.

“What’s gotten into you lately?” Joohyun asked, her tone filled with pain. She sets down her fork slowly. “Why don’t you drop by the house anymore like the way you used to? Or free up your schedule to meet with us? I barely see you anymore, Seul. Seungwan even misses you, she loved it whenever you’d drop by and sing along to her piano playing.”

Joohyun swallows hard. “It’s almost like you’ve yourself a stranger.” Seulgi listens, quietly poking at her meal and shoving a few bites into her mouth now and then. She knows Joohyun isn’t finished with her onslaught of questions, questions she couldn’t bear to give the truthful answers to.

“You know I’ve been trying to get my new book series out, Hyun-ah. I know I’ve been a little distant, but did something happen?” Seulgi asks, shoveling another mouthful of eggs into her mouth. She chewed for a few moments, waiting. Joohyun lowered her gaze, fiddling with the flashing iron chopsticks in her hands.

“You sound kind of...desperate. Is something the matter? Did Seungwan do something...to hurt you?” The author asked suddenly, eyes narrowing in their sockets. “No, silly. Seungwan proposed. She couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Joohyun reached out and took a polite sip from her tea. “That’s what she did, Seul. She proposed to me, remember?” Seulgi’s eyes instantly flit down to Joohyun’s engagement ring. The elegant band was tangled in the engineer’s string of fate, red straining against the gold.

Despite the circumstances, Seulgi had to admit the teardrop shaped golden beads lacing her and Joohyun’s string did an amazing job at complimenting Seungwan’s ring. “Of course I remember,” the author muttered, washing down the bitter taste in her mouth with another spoonful of eggs.

An uneasy feeling began blooming in her chest. “I was there when it happened.” The older woman gave her a tense smile, adding onto the tension in Seulgi’s shoulders. “Right, well, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Seulgi gave her a blank stare, simply chewing on her food and waiting for Joohyun to speak again. Internally, the author was praying that this conversation wasn’t going in the direction she thought it was. Nervously, Joohyun took in a deep breath.

“Seul, I was wondering. I forgot to ask you before the engagement, but, is Seungwan the one?” She watched her best friend visibly tense at her question, going rigid in her seat at the kitchen table. Mid-chew, Seulgi’s eyes trailed down to Joohyun’s engagement ring, then gradually rose up again to meet her questioning stare.

Joohyun felt her heart beginning to sink. Shouldn’t Seulgi have answered more quickly if it was a yes? Ever so slowly, the author shook her head from left to right. “I’m sorry, Joohyun,” she murmured, her eyes focused on anything but Joohyun’s face. Reaching a hand out, Seulgi gently took Joohyun’s hand in her own and sighed.

Her thumb ran over the cool surface of Joohyun’s engagement ring, sending tingles down both of their spines. “Seungwan isn’t the one your string is tied to.” The older woman felt as though she were about to faint from the shock, clasping her other hand over Seulgi’s in an effort to maintain her will not to burst into tears.

For a moment, Joohyun felt cheated. After years and years of searching, she thought she had finally found the one she was destined to live her life with. Yet once more, she had been snubbed, which is why she had come up with a backup plan. Quickly, Joohyun regained what was left of her composure and met Seulgi’s sympathetic smile with a hardened expression.

“Seul, I did a little research online and I think you can help me figure something out.” Her voice came out determined, ready to put up a fight against fate itself. Confused, the author let go of Joohyun’s hand and picked her fork back up from the table.

“Figure what out?”

“How to tie together Seungwan and I’s strings.”

For a moment, there was silence. “Wait, what?” Seulgi’s face had twisted up with confusion and hurt. Joohyun felt her heart clench and then unclench in her chest. “Are you saying you’re going to give up the search? You’re giving up on your soulmate?” Seulgi sputtered out, stunned at the firmness in Joohyun’s tone.

It was rare to hear the typically soft spoken woman raise her voice in such a way, indicating that Joohyun was dead serious about her request. Seulgi felt her stomach flipping over and over again, still dawning on the realization that Joohyun was fed up with waiting for her soulmate.

Too late. Seulgi had been too late. Her mind began spinning, this was too much for her to take in. A sudden urge to throw up began to blossom within her throat. Everything around her began collapsing into itself, almost as if Seulgi herself was fading away.

“Seulgi, I know that this must be asking you a lot,” Joohyun said, her voice raw and laced with an apologetic tone. Carefully, she runs a hand over Seulgi’s limp arm as it rests on top of the kitchen table. The blank expression on the younger woman’s face concerned her, she missed seeing Seulgi’s genuine smile. It’d been a long time since she’d seen the crinkles of her eyes come together.

Numbly, Seulgi watched Joohyun’s fingers curl around her wrist. Their strings melded together once more, twirling together in a bond of bright crimson and flashes of gold. She swallowed hard. If only Joohyun could _see._ “I’m just so tired of searching for them. It’s been _years._ I’ve been looking since high school! Surely I should’ve found them by now!”

Eyes glistening, Joohyun held her head in her hands and refused to look up at her best friend. Sniffling could be heard emitting from the curtain of her long, dark brown hair. Seulgi seemed to wait for her to speak up once more, unable to say or do anything but stare at her. She wished Seulgi would say something, anything, but she understood the younger woman’s shock.

All Joohyun’s life, she had been a stark believer in soulmates. When she was a young girl, her grandmother would recount tales about the strings of fate to her before bedtime whenever she visited for the summer. One of their favorite pastimes was weaving and decorating matching red string bracelets to wear.

Playfully, her grandmother would say that these were exactly like what the strings of fate looked like. While Joohyun wasn’t sure if she actually had the sight or not, she’d never had the courage to ask, she always listened with excitement to her grandmother’s stories.

Those summers spent at her grandmother’s house were part of the reason why Joohyun was so dead set on finding her soulmate. Just before Joohyun started her sophomore year of high school, her grandmother fell ill. Joohyun and her family spent the last few weeks of summer break spending time with her grandmother, trying to make the most of what time they had left.

Joohyun held her grandmother’s hand during her last few moments. Weakly, her grandmother tugged on Joohyun’s red string bracelet. “Your grandfather is calling for me,” she whispered. And then, just like that, her grandmother passed away.

Seulgi coughing brought Joohyun out from her trance, and she began speaking again, picking back up where she had left off. “Although I know now that Seungwan isn’t the one...I think I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with her. You know? Finally settle down with someone. This is about the time people do that.”

Cautiously, she peers up to take in Seulgi’s grave expression. Seulgi’s knuckles were white, clenched around her fork, and her face had paled considerably. “I think you must already get the gist of what I’m saying, but here goes nothing.” Joohyun takes a deep breath, steeling herself to spit out the phrase she’d been holding onto for so long.

“At my wedding, will you tie Seungwan and I’s strings? During part of the ceremony? It’d mean a lot more to me on the wedding day, it’d be more symbolic that way, I think.” Again, silence surrounded them. Joohyun understood the gravity of her request, and felt guilty for asking so much of her friend.

It wasn’t Seulgi’s fault that Joohyun’s soulmate hadn’t turned up yet. Seulgi hadn’t asked to be endowed with the gift of seeing the red strings of fate or the power to decide soulmates. She remembers the memories Seulgi would share from her past, riddled with childhood bullies and people selfishly begging her to tie their strings to others.

And yet, was Joohyun’s request any different? Her cheeks reddened with shame. She was exactly like those who pestered Seulgi when she was younger. Just as Joohyun realized her mistake, Seulgi softly spoke up. “Seungwan means this much to you?” The older woman felt her heart freeze within her chest at her best friend’s words.

“You care about her so much that you’d defy the bond of destiny for her?” For a moment, Joohyun was unable to answer. She was lost in the swirling of Seulgi’s dark brown eyes, searching for the right answer. But Joohyun was tired of looking, she knew that deep down, she loved Seungwan. Her phone rang from the kitchen countertop, breaking the eerie atmosphere between them.

“She’s calling me,” Joohyun muttered, getting up from the table to pick up her phone. Seulgi stares at her, still seated as though she were a stone statue. She hadn’t moved an inch since Joohyun dropped her requested on her. There was an unspoken understanding that their morning had dwindled away, and Joohyun would be leaving.

“I’ll need some time to think about this,” Seulgi warns, her voice as pained and heavy as it had been since Joohyun began her request. “I can’t give you an answer right away.” Joohyun nods, slowly, not understanding why her heart felt so heavy. “Take as much time as you need. The wedding’s a long way away. We haven’t even decided the date yet,” Joohyun murmured.

They stared at each other, Joohyun’s phone still ringing in her hand, both wondering what the other was thinking. “You better get going and take that call,” Seulgi says at last, smiling weakly up at her. Shakily, Joohyun nods, grabbing her keys off of the kitchen counter. “I’ll see you around?” Joohyun asks, her thumb hovering over the accept button on her phone screen.

Briefly, she wondered why this moment felt as though she were missing something important. Seulgi dips her head in a slight nod. Seeing this, Joohyun flashes a thin smile at her and answers the call, making her way towards the front door. When she flings the door open, she takes one look over her shoulder, taking in the sight of Seulgi’s rigid back.

Half listening to what Seungwan is saying, Joohyun feels her heart clench once more before she turns back around and shuts the door behind her. On the drive back to home, Joohyun can’t help but imagine what kind of trauma from Seulgi’s past she’s just stirred up. _That must be why I felt so terrible about it_ , Joohyun reasons.

It wasn’t often that Seulgi opened up about how people tried to use her powers for the benefit of themselves, but Joohyun knows that there’s more to it than the younger woman would give away. Now she’d probably brought the same pain to her best friend. Joohyun wishes that this would’ve occurred to her before she’d asked.

Cranking up the radio to distract herself, she tries not to think about the consequences of her actions, of the possible pain Seulgi was going through from resurfacing memories of her bullies, to the implications of cutting and tying strings that didn’t match up with each other. She’d send a bouquet of flowers and chocolates to Seulgi’s work to try and make up for it.

It was clear that Seulgi would need some space until she was able to sort through her thoughts and give Joohyun an answer. Joohyun didn’t want to impose on her best friend any more than she already had, and resolved to not push the younger woman too hard about coming around as much.

As long as Seulgi worked her magic, Joohyun was certain everything would be alright. With every passing second, Joohyun began to relax and feel more at ease with herself. Deep down, Joohyun didn’t doubt Seulgi’s judgement. If Seulgi decided she didn’t want to tie their strings together, it wouldn’t be the end of the world…but she _did_ promise her grandmother she’d find her soulmate.

Even if her best friend had been raised with the understanding that fate was something no mere mortal should mess with, Joohyun had an inkling Seulgi would do the impossible. Or at least, that’s what she was praying for. Even if Seungwan wasn’t her true soulmate, Seulgi could make it so with her powers.

Meanwhile, as the older woman began to feel increasingly better about the entire situation, Seulgi only felt worse and worse. She remained rooted at the kitchen table far after Joohyun left, unable to move a muscle. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed to herself, unable to hold back the crushing emotions weighing over her.

All her life, she had thoughtlessly believed that fate would put her and Joohyun together, and where had that gotten her? Now Joohyun was asking for the one thing Seulgi dreaded to give her – she wanted Seulgi to give her up. But Seulgi knew Joohyun didn’t have any clue they were actually soulmates.

In just a few minutes, everything Seulgi had ever dreamed of having with Joohyun was torn to smithereens. This wasn’t the first time Seulgi questioned the method of destiny, but it certainly stung the most. When Seungwan and Joohyun announced their engagement, Seulgi had the hardest time covering up the shock and betrayal she felt.

Eventually, she faked a phone call from her editor and left early, claiming there was an issue with one of her publishing companies she needed to sort out before her latest book series debuted. In reality, Seulgi hailed a cab from the newly engaged couple’s house party and trudged her way home.

On the way up to her front door, Seulgi had felt parts of her soul slipping out from beneath her skin. But this moment was nowhere near as painful as this was. Joohyun’s words kept ringing in her ears. _I’m just so tired of searching for them._ “I’m right here, Joohyun,” Seulgi whispered to the empty room.

“I’ve always been right here.”


	6. The Weakest Link

Silence echoes throughout the four walls of the bathroom. Seulgi takes in a shaky breath, “She wanted to know then if Seungwan was her soulmate. Just like that, while I was still hungover from the night before.” The author lets out what Sooyoung imagines was supposed to come off as a chuckle, but had turned last minute into a bitter snort.

“I just wish she’d done it before they’d gotten engaged, you know?” Seulgi sighed, shaking her head from left to right. Meanwhile, Sooyoung’s mouth is wide open with shock. A chill ran down her spine at just how long Seulgi has been fighting against the universe.

No amount of words could ever help Sooyoung truly understand the way the author must have felt in that moment, where Joohyun had begged Seulgi to tie her string to Seungwan. She couldn’t imagine ever being in Seulgi’s shoes, experiencing something like that. But even despite this, the mere act of listening to what Seulgi had just finished saying was enough to form a hard lump in her throat.

To have Joohyun, her _soulmate,_ tell Seulgi to her face that she was willing to give her true soulmate up in order to settle for Seungwan? Of course, Seulgi had already told Sooyoung earlier what Joohyun had wanted…but she hadn’t expected the older woman to go about it the way she had.

The words _settle_ and _Joohyun_ had never mixed in Sooyoung’s mind before. Joohyun was someone who tirelessly pursued what she wanted until she obtained it, until she held it in her hands and claimed it as her own. She was a hardworking young woman with a dedication that put each and every one of them to shame.

Sooyoung could see where Joohyun was coming from, however. After year upon year spent with Seungwan, Joohyun must’ve momentarily forgotten about her grand quest for finding her long lost soulmate. It wasn’t as if Joohyun could’ve gone out searching for her soulmate anymore, anyways.

She was _with_ Seungwan and she had _been_ with Seungwan for a long time. Perhaps it was this amount of time spent with the Canadian that had allowed Joohyun’s resolve to dwindle away into nothing but a hopeless plea. Joohyun’s shattered dreams of settling down with her soulmate…Seulgi being unable to confess year after year.

The entire ordeal sounded like some kind of soap opera smash hit, something you’d watch on the enlarged movie screen with a bucket of greased up popcorn sitting in your lap for late night entertainment. The longer Sooyoung thought about it, the harder the action of clearing her throat became, the strangled sound causing Seulgi to lift her bowed head.

“So, you’re saying Joohyun didn’t know by then?” Sooyoung queried, voice struggling to hide how much Seulgi’s story was affecting her. There began a soft burning in Sooyoung’s chest, budding into a raging fury over the fact Joohyun had had the nerve to ask Seulgi, who had been hurting all this time, to cut their strings for Seungwan.

Why wasn’t Seulgi as mad as she was? Why hadn’t she ever lashed out from the pain and anger she’d been feeling for all these years? What had happened to her spirit, her will to fight?

“Know what?” Seulgi fired back, still lost in her sorrow.

“That you’re her _soulmate_? That you’ve _been_ her soulmate this whole time? That asking _you_ to do this was just a tiny bit self-centered of her?” With each question, Sooyoung’s voice rose higher and higher, like the growing flames of a forest fire.

There was another pause. She could see the cogs of Seulgi’s mind slowly turning while she tried to control her breathing and the rapid pumping of her heart.

“How could she know?” Seulgi answered, sounding slightly exasperated. Her strength was beginning to fail her and she leaned back against the sink for support. At that moment, Seulgi wanted nothing more but to curl up beneath the blankets of her hotel bed and sleep the rest of today and tomorrow away.

Maybe if she slept long enough, the wedding wouldn’t actually happen. Maybe if she dreamed it away, she’d wake up and Joohyun would finally be hers. But all of that was just wishful, childish thinking. The wedding was inevitable. Seulgi would cut the strings for Joohyun, for the love of her life.

Seulgi would pass her soulmate on to another without a second thought. Then she’d disappear from their lives like a phantom. She would move halfway around the world or maybe she’d travel the world. The goal was to get off the grid, and as far as Seulgi was concerned, she had gotten pretty good at disappearing.

“I never told Joohyun outright that our strings were tied together,” Seulgi said, her words heavy. The regret in her voice is so thick that it’s palpable in the air between them. “I feel like Joohyun would’ve said something if she found out the truth, right? She wouldn’t be with Seungwan if she knew. At least, I’d _like_ to think she wouldn’t be.”

Truthfully, neither one of them knew for sure what went on in Joohyun’s mind. Even after years of friendship, the engineer was still an enigma to both of the young women. Neither of them truly knew the older woman’s thoughts. Unlike her, they didn’t possess the ability to read her character like an open book.

“I think she knows,” Sooyoung said. “She _must_ have known at some point…or wondered at _least_ about the possibility of you being her soulmate. You almost always get an inkling when someone close to you has a crush on you. I knew when Yeri had a crush on me practically the second we met!”

“I mean maybe deep down Joohyun knows the truth,” Seulgi began slowly, pondering Sooyoung’s words. “But then again, maybe not. With all those other people she’s dated, with Seungwan in her life…it’s possible Joohyun could’ve interpreted her feelings for me, if she had any to begin with, as something else.”

“She could’ve buried or battered them down into nothing in order to kind of protect herself from the truth. She might be just oblivious, not everyone can tell when their best friend is madly in love with them,” Seulgi runs a hand through her disheveled brown hair, trying to find the right words to make sense of her thoughts on the matter.

“Besides, people all around the world react differently when they meet their soulmates. It’s never the same feeling twice, never the same experience again. Not every love story in this world unfolds as perfectly as yours and Yeri’s, Sooyoung-ah. I think you should remember that,” she says gently, doing her best to remind the younger woman of the vast world they were a part of, that nothing was guaranteed for anyone.

There were some questions that no one had an answer for. There were just somethings that didn’t work out. The universe played tricks on people all the time, and for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, it had chosen Seulgi for its grandest scheme yet.

“Anyways, it’s hard to know the answer since Joohyun’s the one getting married tomorrow, huh?” The pair were silent once more, contemplating everything that had been said. Seulgi squinted as she checked her wristwatch. Seungwan and Joohyun’s dinner rehearsal would be over soon. She knew they only had so much time left before someone came knocking on the bathroom door, wondering why the facility was locked from the inside.

A prickle of nervousness washed over Seulgi for the first time since Sooyoung had slid the deadbolt over the threshold. What if Joohyun or Seungwan noticed they’d been missing from the dinner party for so long? What if they started looking for the two of them? How could they explain the way they’d locked themselves up in the bathroom without them suspecting anything?

To her surprise, however, Sooyoung continued to keep asking questions rather than letting everything drop. “Did Joohyun ever answer your question?” Sooyoung asked, biting at the inside of her thumb thoughtfully. She had somewhat regained her temper after listening to Seulgi’s reasoning.

“Huh? What question?” Seulgi threw the nurse practitioner a confused look from across the room. “You know,” Sooyoung replied hesitantly, eyes shifting back and forth. “Did Joohyun ever give you an answer when you asked if Seungwan was worth it?”

Seulgi choked out a forced laugh. “She didn’t have to tell me for me to know.” Sooyoung bit her lip. She still had a plethora of questions Seulgi hadn’t answered yet. “Aren’t you angry at her for choosing Seungwan over you?” Is the first to bubble forth from her lips.

To her surprise, Seulgi’s eyebrows furrowed, and her calm expression transformed into one filled with confusion. “What are you talking about, Sooyoung-ah?” Sooyoung rolled her eyes. Trust Seulgi to be this dense, even after everything that’s happened.

“I _mean_ how could you not have built up some kind of vengeful feelings towards Seungwan? If I were in your shoes…I think I’d end up hating her at some point or another. I couldn’t bear to be friends with her, especially after the engagement and the wedding announcements,” the younger woman confessed, biting her lip.

Unexpectedly, Seulgi burst out laughing, as if Sooyoung had told the funniest joke she’d ever heard. The author doubled over, holding her stomach for a few minutes before leaning back against the bathroom sinks and wiping away the tear that had rolled down her cheek. “Oh, you’re hilarious, Sooyoung-ah. You really are,” Seulgi giggled.

 Sooyoung remained as she was, arms crossed, studying the older woman until she completely collected herself. Reminding herself that Seulgi was currently under an immense amount of stress, Sooyoung did her best to refrain from being too rash with pushing her to answer her questions. She wondered how Seulgi hadn’t broken down completely while recounting the lengthy tale of her and Joohyun.

“You know, I could never bring myself to hate Seungwan-ah. No matter what,” Seulgi murmured thoughtfully, having calmed down enough to continue. “She’s helped me in more ways than one over the years, especially during college. We were in the same graduating class. We walked the stage together for god’s sake! Even in spite of her asking my soulmate to marry her, there’s no doubt that she’s one of the closest friends I’ve had. That I _still_ have.”

Seulgi’s shoulders slumped, feeling the wrath inside of her dying down and the familiar wave of sorrow rising up again. “Look…I know I’ve been pushing you guys away for the longest time. I know you miss our little get-togethers where we’d catch up with each other’s achievements and life, that I’ve been a shadow in all of your lives over the past couple of years. But now you know why. You understand. Right, Sooyoung-ah?”

Sooyoung fought back the urge to let her own tears spill down her face. “I could handle a lot of things while Joohyun has remained oblivious,” Seulgi nodded, eyes focused on counting the tiles on the floor. “The boyfriends, the girlfriends, the inquires she had about whether or not they were the one or not. But after a little while, seeing her and Seungwan together for so long began to affect me. I tore myself away, I put myself first. And for that, I’m sorry.”

Seeing Sooyoung in tears made Seulgi swallow hard. She hadn’t been aware of how much her actions affected those around her, the people she cared about most. “I’m so, so sorry, Sooyoung-ah. I was too blind to see that I was the one getting in the way of Joohyun and I’s fate all along this whole time. I’m the one who’s caused all of this pain, I just know it.”

Surging forward, Sooyoung shook her head. She wrapped her arms around Seulgi’s shaking frame, allowing the older woman to cry into her shoulder. “Don’t say that,” Sooyoung whispered, looking at their reflections in the mirror, watching the way Seulgi was breaking down before her eyes. Seulgi – the one who was the strongest amongst their tight knit friend group. Seulgi – who was selfless enough to consider cutting her string from her soulmate’s.

How were they going to make it through the wedding at this rate? How could she stop Seulgi from cutting her string and tying Joohyun’s to Seungwan’s? This was an outrageous mess, and knew she had to fill Yeri in as soon as she was able to. “We’ve still got tomorrow,” Sooyoung murmured, swaying the two of them back and forth ever so slightly as she tried to calm down the older woman.

Her mind was racing, straining to find a solution to the mess all of them had gotten tangled into. Yeri would know what to do. Her fiancé had a knack for coming up with easy solutions to complex problems. Sooyoung wished Yeri were here right now with them in this fancy bathroom, absorbing every detail Seulgi had to offer them with her heart shattering tale.

She had to keep Seulgi in the bathroom for as long as possible. She needed to stall the older woman in order to buy herself more time to come up with the answer, to get as much information as she possibly could before the night ended. “A lot can happen in less than twenty-four hours, Seulgi-yah,” Sooyoung said before pulling away from Seulgi’s grasp. “Maybe something will change Joohyun’s mind. Maybe the impossible can come true.”

The taller woman reached over for another wad of paper towels, passing it to her teary eyed friend with a small smile. “Feels good to finally let it all out, huh?” Sooyoung said softly, helping Seulgi daub away her tears. After everything Seulgi had done for Sooyoung, the least she could do in this moment was hold Seulgi in her time of need.

She knew that now, more than ever, Seulgi would need her friends’ support, someone she could cling to who would tell her everything was going to be alright. Biting her lip, Sooyoung prayed Yeri’s flight had not been delayed. Gently, Sooyoung stroked Seulgi’s thick brown locks, fighting to keep her own tears from spilling down her cheeks.

Could Sooyoung ever have taken Seulgi’s place? She couldn’t help but imagine what she’d be doing if she were in Seulgi’s shoes right now, if Yeri had been the one to ask her to cut their strings. Would she ever be strong enough to endure the pain of letting go of her soulmate? While Sooyoung liked to think she could, deep down she knew the answer.

She was absolutely weak in the knees with love for her fiancé. Yeri was someone she knew she couldn’t live without. In Sooyoung’s mind, the universe allowed them to find each other to help ease Sooyoung’s sorrow for her mother’s passing. _Perfect timing_ , she would always tell Yeri, and the taller woman believed it wholeheartedly.

She and Yeri had found each other at the right time, the right place, as if they were both searching for the last piece of the puzzle of their lives and instantly fit together. Not a day went by when she realized just how lucky she was to have met Yeri when she did, all those years ago, crying by herself in the women’s bathroom after class.

It pained her to realize that Seulgi had never experienced this kind of moment, that perhaps the author never would. If Seulgi truly went through with cutting the strings tomorrow…what would the consequences of her actions entail?

Throughout her life, Sooyoung heard rumors, tall tales, of stories never proven to be concrete, of people with the sight cutting strings and tying them to other people. As one could expect, back in the days when the sight of the strings was a common characteristic, there were people with rebellious natures also roaming the earth. For them, the strings were merely a suggestion, not a means to an end.

Why should they let the universe choose who they were going to spend the rest of their lives with? Why not make that decision themselves? Most of those who possessed the power of the sight knew better than to dip into the dangerous territory of interfering with fate. But there were some, for a hefty fee, who would gladly partake in the cutting of strings.

The _Atropos._ An underground network, a whisper of a rumor of people who used their powers in order to grant individual requests towards their strings of fate for thousands. Sooyoung learned long ago during one of her history courses that their name from popular Greek and Roman mythology regarding the three goddesses who were in charge of determining one’s destiny, distributing their lifetime, and then severing their lifeline.

Specifically, they coined themselves after from the goddess Atropos, who was said to be in charge of cutting the thread and determining one’s time of death. Whenever Sooyoung heard the name, she felt shivers run up and down her spine. Did the _Atropos_ have no conscious? Who knew what kind of consequences their actions held, but how could they care if they were becoming filthy rich?

Now that the sight was rare, she wondered if the _Atropos_ were still out there. Perhaps what they had done in the past caused natural disasters to rage upon the earth, for famines to disrupt peaceful farmlands, for the wrath of greed to sweep over them all. Maybe they were to blame for fate steering away from Joohyun and Seulgi.

All of these things race through Sooyoung’s mind as she comforts Seulgi, running gentle hands up and down the expanse of Seulgi’s slender, shaking back. Resolve burns in Sooyoung’s eyes when she glances at her reflection again. There was no way in hell she’d let her best friend go down without a fight.

Yeri would no doubt be on the same side as her, and together, when Sooyoung finally picked up Yeri from the airport, they would figure out what to do. They couldn’t let Seulgi stoop to the level of the _Atropos._ Not without a fight.

But in the meantime, she needed more answers while she still had Seulgi right in front of her. It still bothered her, despite Seulgi’s reasoning, that Seulgi didn’t possess a single drop of envy towards Seungwan. “Tell me about Seungwan, every memory in the two years before I got accepted,” the nurse practitioner whispers. “It’s time you got _everything_ off of your chest, Seul.”

She felt Seulgi begin nodding her head, silently agreeing with her. The older woman took a shaky breath, and then began.

 

**

 

“What’s your major, again?” Seulgi asks as she shovels more caramel coated popcorn kernels into her mouth. The large screen TV in front of her flickers over fresh, eighteen year old face with a kaleidoscope of color, flashing with hues of blues and reds and greens.

She’d knocked on Joohyun’s apartment door with the intention of hanging out with the older woman, only to find Seungwan standing in the doorway when the door swung open. Graciously, the Canadian had granted Seulgi entrance into the flat and asked if she’d like to see the rest of the movie she was watching while she waited for Joohyun to come home.

 They’d spent more a few minutes in the dark of Joohyun’s living room. Their eyes were glued to the movie when Seulgi finally spoke up to break the tension. The taller woman figured she might as well get to know Joohyun’s new lover while she was there, and decided to make the best of the situation as she could bear.

“I’m a music major!” Seungwan exclaims, smiling sweetly at the taller girl. That takes Seulgi by surprise. Over the past two years Joohyun had been in college, Seulgi had heard stories of all of Joohyun’s dates – all of them ranging from plucky Computer Science majors to Sports Medicine jocks, and everything in between.

 Seungwan patiently waits for Seulgi’s grasping hand to withdraw from the popcorn bowl before delving her fingers into the junk food. “How about you, Seulgi?” The shorter woman’s tone is full of perfect curiosity, as if she genuinely wanted to learn more about Seulgi.

It made the taller girl feel a little bit guilty for secretly being against her and Joohyun’s romance. In between bites, Seulgi responds, matching the same enthusiasm of Seungwan perfectly. “Right now, I’m a philosophy major, but I may change to English…I’ve always been interested in American Literature and Western culture. But I’m not so sure yet,” she says, shooting a small smile in Seungwan’s direction.

“Wait a second, did you say English?” Seungwan asks, leaning forward out of her seat. Excitement practically radiates from her lit up features. Seulgi chuckled at the other girl’s reaction and nodded at her. “I’ve always had a passion for writing. We’ll see if it works out, though, I’ll have to brush up on my English skills for _sure_ if I want to change majors. I can’t speak the language fluently, but I can read it pretty well.”

Although her voice portrayed an almost perfect indifference, Seulgi was more than a little bit worried about changing her major. Even as a little girl, the idea of philosophy had been more than appealing to her. After taking a few intro courses in the subject, however, Seulgi knew it wasn’t the right field for her at all.

“You know how I’m from Canada, right?” Seungwan grinned, waiting for the slight nod Seulgi gave her to finish her thought. Seulgi wondered to herself how someone could be so upbeat and cheerful. Seulgi nodded slowly, trying to see what Seungwan was getting at.

Contrasting with Seulgi’s typically reserved nature around new people, Seungwan was an open book begging to be read. It made Seungwan seem approachable and friendly, and Seulgi’s convinced that the Canadian’s outgoing personality is what had first disarmed her from disliking her for dating Joohyun.

 “I’m actually fluent in three languages, and English is one of them! I could totally help you out if you ever needed me to…I’ve always used a mix of English, French, and Korean whenever I’m at home in Toronto.” Seulgi’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, obviously impressed, “You can speak _three_ languages?”

Seungwan shrugged and slyly popped a kernel of the sweet corn into her mouth. “I guess you could say I know a few words,” she laughed, cracking herself up at her own joke. Seulgi’s shocked by the shorter woman’s friendliness, how she’s so quick to give and share.

“You’d really help me?” She asks, baffled at Seungwan’s readiness to lend a hand to almost a complete stranger. “Of course! Why _else_ would I flaunt my linguistic skills in front of you?” Seungwan jokes, throwing back her head to laugh wholeheartedly.

Blushing profusely, Seulgi pouted, “I dunno, maybe just to show off?” Seungwan snickers in return. “I’d never do such a thing! Here, why don’t we swap numbers that way you can text me whenever you need me to look over something?”

At the request, Seulgi grins and quickly fishes her phone out of her back jeans pocket. “Thank you, Seungwan,” she says in a soft tone, watching the other woman’s fingers dance across the screen of the device.

“Any time,” the Canadian replies in turn, handing Seulgi her phone back after setting her contact up. They turn back to the movie, a Hollywood hit from the States streaming off of Netflix, a comfortable silence surrounding them.

Seulgi’s phone rings with the sound of Joohyun’s personalized text tone a few moments later, and her mood instantly shifts. A wide grin stretches itself across her face and she excitedly calls out, “It’s Joohyun!” Impatiently, Seulgi flicks open the message and reads it.

Seungwan watches the taller woman’s face fall slightly, the smile disappearing into thin air. “I take it that she’s not coming after all, then?” The Canadian pipes up after Seulgi quirks her lips into a slight frown. The taller woman wordlessly sets her phone face down onto the cushion beside her, and Seungwan pauses the movie with the remote control.

Sinking back as far as she could into the couch’s cushions, Seulgi shakes her head and sighs. “She says she’s too swamped with studying to leave the library,” the taller woman replies with a downcast look. “I wish I could get used to our plans falling through,” she chuckles darkly to herself, running a hand through her freshly cut bangs.

They were halfway through Seulgi and Seungwan’s first semester of college. In between working part time at one of the restaurants nearby and studying for her own courses, Seulgi rarely got to spend even a split second with the older woman. In spite of all of this, she and Joohyun still managed to make their friendship work.

She’d ask for a day off on the weekends once a month, and whenever they had even a spontaneous stretch of free time, they’d contact each other hoping the other was free. Seulgi knew it wasn’t Joohyun’s fault that they hardly hung out anymore.

The older woman was preparing for graduation, was taking much harder classes than she was, _and_ was maintaining a job and a romantic relationship simultaneously. Seulgi barely understood how Joohyun was managing to juggle everything.

Half the time, Seulgi felt as though she were being somewhat overwhelmed by her own workload. Then again, she reasoned that due to Joohyun’s hard working nature, the older woman was no doubt accustomed to this type of rigorous lifestyle.

“I feel like that, too,” Seungwan laughs, watching Seulgi bury her face in one of Joohyun’s throw pillows. For a few moments, it feels as if Seungwan and her are friends, shooting the breeze together and sharing a laugh over their mutual friend.

But then Seungwan opens her mouth again, and Seulgi feels the sick sensation of her stomach swirling up in response. “Sometimes weeks will pass where I won’t even see Joohyun, and we practically _live_ together,” The Canadian muses, staring off at the front door of Joohyun’s apartment, as if she were envisioning the older woman to walk into the room.

Seulgi merely hums in response, feeling her blood boil once again. She genuinely kept forgetting Seungwan was Joohyun’s girlfriend, and each time, the remembrance of this fact brought even further pain to her.

“Want to go down to the strip and grab a bite with me instead?” Seungwan asks suddenly, perking up from the loveseat next to the couch, “That’s what you were planning on doing with Joohyun, right?” Her smile is bright and full of hope, but quickly diminishes as the Canadian realizes how forward she might’ve sounded.

“Only if you want to, of course,” she says with a nervous bout of laughter. Her eyes trace over Seulgi’s unmoving form, the taller woman’s face still muffled and hidden beneath the pillow. “I’m just getting a little hungry from only eating popcorn all day.”

Seulgi, still sulking slightly, pulls the purple pillow from her face and sets it back down beside her. Surprising even herself, she begins to nod slowly. “That sounds like a good idea…I could go for some grub,” she says, eyeing Seungwan with a small smile, pretending she doesn’t feel the way her heart is hollowing within her chest.

Truthfully, she didn’t have the heart to let Seungwan down. It wouldn’t really be acceptable for her to merely blow off Joohyun’s girlfriend, and Seulgi didn’t have a single mean bone in her body.

 _We’ll end up together,_ Seulgi thought to herself as she followed Seungwan out of Joohyun’s flat. She tried not to stare at the Canadian’s spare set of keys, focusing on the setting sun rather than the couple keychain attached to Seungwan’s lanyard.

She’d never doubted the strings of fate, and wasn’t about to start now. _Our day will come,_ Seulgi reassured herself, falling in step beside Seungwan, _Joohyun and I will be together._

 

 

**

 

“So Seungwan was the one who helped you finally make your decision about switching your major?” Sooyoung asked, tilting her head to the side. Seulgi had stopped crying by then, but her eyes had become glassy, as if they were staring straight into the past. The author nodded slowly, agreeing with the taller woman.

“Back then I was shy around new people,” Seulgi confessed, chuckling to herself. “I didn’t feel confident enough to even get help from any tutors on campus, I thought that they might make fun of me for not knowing how to speak fluently or spell words right.”

 Seulgi spreads her hands out in front of her, then shrugs. “I guess because of Seungwan’s offer and her tutoring me to improve my English skills, you could say she’s played one of the most pivotal roles in shaping me into who I am today – an international best selling author.”

For a moment, it almost seems like Seulgi is about to start crying again. Sooyoung wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. Once again, she was stumped at how tangled Seulgi was in Seungwan and Joohyun’s lives.

To think, Seungwan had taken something so precious away from Seulgi, her _soulmate_ , yet had simultaneously given her the ability to pursue her dreams as an international author, felt like another stab to Sooyoung’s heart.

As if she were reading one of Seulgi’s thriller novels, Sooyoung began pondering just how this story would end, how the last page would read out. She prayed that whatever it was, it would be happy. But one can only do so much praying.

 

**

 

“What’s this word mean again, Seungwan?” Seulgi calls out, scratching the back of her neck sheepishly. She feels like banging her head against the front of the paperback novel clenched between her hands. Though she’s been studying furiously for the past semester and a half for her classes, the fledgling English major is still struggling over some of the basic words of the language.

“Hang on, food’s almost ready!” Seungwan replies from the kitchen. The Canadian was preoccupied with not burning the sautéed onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and garlic she was cooking for their omelets.

She’d invited Seulgi over to her apartment for food and studying over the weekend since Seulgi was worried about her upcoming English exam. There was no way Seulgi could turn down the offer of homemade Canadian breakfast for dinner, and she had immediately accepted the other girl’s offer.

A stack of fluffy pancakes and crispy bacon adorn a platter in the shape of a large autumn maple leaf beside the stovetop. “It was a parting gift from my mother,” Seungwan had sheepishly explained when she pulled it out and watched Seulgi’s eyes widen. “She’s got a matching one hanging up on the wall in our kitchen back home.”

“I think I can fit the entire contents of my _fridge_ on that thing,” Seulgi giggled, tracing the design with her index finger. The two share a laugh before Seungwan shooed Seulgi out of the kitchen, claiming that she needed to cook alone in order to maintain her concentration.

So Seulgi settled comfortable on Seungwan’s tiny couch, legs crossed and head sinking into the plush cushions. Seungwan lived in a studio apartment just off campus, a cozy little niche that Seulgi instantly fell in love with. The moment she stepped into Seungwan’s humble abode, the English major recognized a talented interior designer in the making.

The walls of Seungwan’s apartment were stark white, pure as freshly laid snow, until the lower paneling gave way to a deep, rich teal color, the perfect touch to make the colors pop. Seungwan motioned for Seulgi to hang her backpack up on the varnished wooden coat rack attached to the wall beside the door.

As she did so, she couldn’t help but keep looking around the room. Optimized for space, everything was carefully laid out and added to the cozy feeling radiating from the apartment’s interior. “Sorry about the mess,” Seungwan chuckled, making her way over to the kitchen. Seulgi stepped out of her shoes and neatly lined up her sneakers with Seungwan’s.

“Care for any tea? Water?” Seungwan asked over her shoulder, grinning at Seulgi’s bewildered expression. “What kind of tea do you have?” Seulgi asked absentmindedly as she stepped into the living room. “Chamomile, mint, pomegranate infused green tea, mango…,” Seungwan listed off, readying her kettle. “I’d like the pomegranate, please!” Seulgi called.

A set of tall, shuttered windows allowed rays of bold sunlight to filter in, painting the room in a warm glow. Seulgi padded around on the hardwood floor, taking note of the potted plants accenting the color of the walls, the wooden coffee table with a matching set of rustic chairs. A small sofa the color of faint chocolate was pushed along the back of the far wall, adjacent to Seungwan’s bed.

Pushing aside the cream colored throw pillows, Seulgi made herself comfortable while Seungwan set about boiling the water for their tea. “This is some place you got here, Seungwan-ah,” Seulgi complimented dreamily. She resisted the urge to run her finger along the back of the book spines adorning the white shelves resting above the sofa.

Seungwan laughed wholeheartedly, head poking out from the kitchen to shoot her a wide grin. “You like it, huh? Took me forever to figure out how to make it feel less constricting.” Seulgi nodded, impressed. “It paid off, I could live here forever!” She paused, squinting at something above Seungwan’s bed. “Hang on…are those _vinyl’s_ decorating your wall?”

Seungwan reappeared in the threshold of the kitchen, holding a set of matching black mugs. Wisps of steam trailed from the tops of them, and Seungwan made sure to set out coasters for each mug. “Yep,” the Canadian said, setting the mugs down on top of the coffee table.

She gazes around the apartment with pride, sighing happily as she draws herself up one of the wooden chairs. “I installed them myself when I first moved in!” The Canadian said cheerfully. “The best part about them is that I can just take them off the wall and set them on my record player whenever I want, like an interchangeable library.”

Seulgi sipped at her tea and hummed appreciatively. This was much better than whatever she had back at her dorm…did her and her roommate even have tea? Seulgi didn’t think so. “Anyways, what’s coming up on your English test, Seul?” Seungwan asked, changing the subject. Seulgi sighed, running a hand down her face. Her mood instantly drained.

Learning English was harder than what she’d been expecting, but she was doing her best with rolling with the punches. “Pronunciation’s the main section,” Seulgi grimaced, fiddling with her mug. “My weakest point. I’m fine with essays, verbs, past and present tenses…but I’m the worst at saying the words correctly.”

Seungwan listens carefully, nodding along before taking another sip of her tea. “I see. How about you look over your notes while I get dinner started, and then we after we eat we can look over exactly which words you’re struggling with and go from there?” Seulgi breathed out a sigh of relief, a blissful smile spreading across her face.

“Thanks, Seungwan-ah,” the English major breathed, taking a long sip from her calming tea. “You’re really a life saver, you know that?” Seungwan had merely smiled and laughed, “What are friends for, Seul?” The pair began chatting about their week, exchanging funny stories from their work and bonding over their mutual hatred of mathematics.

When they had drained their tea mugs, Seungwan stood, gathering the dirty dishes in her hands. “Alright, I’m going to get dinner started, how about you grab your textbooks and get started? Food should be ready in twenty minutes or so!” Seulgi nodded and made her way over to her backpack while Seungwan disappeared into the kitchen once more.

“Five more minutes!” Seungwan called out, soothing the rumbling of Seulgi’s stomach and smoothing over the frustration she had been feeling. The thickness of her accent when she attempted to speak English was beginning to bother her. Why couldn’t her mouth or tongue obey her when she needed it the most?

Seulgi looked over the phrase that was giving her trouble again, too immersed in murmuring a jumble of English words to notice that Seungwan was fondly looking at her from the stove. “Keep going, Seulgi!” The music major cheered, waving her spatula in the air cutely. Seulgi looked up and chuckled, grateful for the other girl’s endless encouragements.

Truly, she owed most of her success in her English courses to Seungwan. The music major was always willing to lend a hand, no matter how trivial Seulgi’s homework was. Though her heart still burned to know that Seungwan was dating Joohyun, Seulgi couldn’t help but end up taking a liking to Seungwan as well.

Deep down, Seulgi secretly hoped that whenever her and Joohyun broke up she could still be friends with them both. When Seungwan had set out plates for them both, she made Seulgi pose with the food, claiming she was sending Joohyun a photo.

With a tiny kernel of jealousy burning from inside her heart, Seulgi held up her food for the camera with a giant grin slapped across her face, ready to dig in. Even when Seungwan broke out into a chuckle at Joohyun’s response, Seulgi’s smile didn’t cease to shine.

The young college freshman was alight with the certainty that one day, _she_ would be the one who would make Joohyun smile like that one day.


	7. Everything Unravels

 “Now you know everything I have to say,” Seulgi whispers, studying the younger woman with a set of tired eyes. After telling Sooyoung about Seungwan, she somehow felt lighter, heavier in a different sense. Sooyoung had been right, talking about this _had_ been a type of catharsis for her. But she knew better than to believe it was all over. You can’t run from fate forever, it’ll catch up to you eventually, so what was the point of trying?

The wedding was still on, the dinner rehearsal is nearly over. She can hear the muffled chatter outside the safety of the door, the clinks of wine flutes in toast, the gentle scraping of fork and knife against porcelain. The broken woman faces the mirror once more to fix any imperfections in her makeup as best as she could.

Sooyoung sighs and comes to stand at the sink beside her, rummaging around in her clutch. Thankfully, neither of them look like half the mess they thought they did. “Here,” Sooyoung murmurs, passing Seulgi a small container of loose powder to daub away where her mascara had begun running.

“Thank you,” she said, grasping the compact within her shaking hands. Seulgi had been tired of bearing the weight of her secret alone, of harboring her feelings away and pushing herself to remain strong in the eyes of her friends. Joohyun’s wedding and pushed her to her breaking point. In the end, she was glad it was Sooyoung she’d spilled everything to.

What if it had been Seungwan who’d been gifted the sight? Or even worse…Joohyun? At the thought of her, Seulgi subconsciously pulled up a mental picture of the bride to be. She envisioned her sitting at her table, listening along to a joke Seungwan’s father telling stories about his daughter, holding Seungwan’s hand in her lap.

Joohyun’s eyes would crinkle up at the corners and sparkle like black diamonds beneath the light. The corners of her mouth would draw back ever so slightly and she would laugh, quietly at first to remain polite, but harder once everyone else joined in. She was beautiful tonight, more so than Seulgi had ever seen her.

Joohyun had been _glowing_ with life, as vibrant as a spring field filled with flowers. Seulgi had sat at her and Sooyoung’s table, picking at her food and only half listening to the conversation around her, watching her soulmate out of the corner of her eyes. She had felt lifeless in comparison to everyone around her, and the sensation still remained, riddled deep in the marrow of her bones as if she were already withering away.

Seulgi bit her lip to snap herself out of it and passed Sooyoung’s makeup back with a small smile. There wasn’t any sense in hoping that tomorrow wouldn’t, either. Seulgi had learned that lesson years ago. She glanced at the younger woman beside her, expecting her to motion for them to leave.

Yet despite the older girl having finished talking, Sooyoung remains motionless and expressionless, waiting for Seulgi’s next move with calculating eyes. Suddenly, nothing felt real to her. Not when she glared at her right hand, or glanced at the bathroom door, or listened to the sudden eruption of laughter from the outside.

Anger spiked through her at the sight of the red string tied to her pinky, the burning color seemed more vibrant than ever against the pale ivory of the sink. For the first time, Seulgi wished she could untie the string, pretend as if it weren’t permanently a part of her. She wished she’d been soulmates with someone else. She wished she’d said something, anything to Joohyun. She wished she didn’t have the sight.

But then the regret came flooding through her, dousing the flames of her rage, and Seulgi knew she wouldn’t have chosen anyone other than Joohyun. Even if she had a choice, she knew everything happened for a reason. “You won’t change your mind?” Sooyoung asked in a low tone, though both of them already knew Seulgi’s answer.

Slowly, the author shook her head from left to right, confirming Sooyoung’s suspicions. “Think about what you’re saying, what you’re _doing_ ,” Sooyoung protested, pinching at the bridge of her eyebrows. She felt as though she were talking to a brick wall, hitting dead ends and getting nowhere with the stubborn woman.

They had been in the bathroom for what seemed like ages now, and had been lucky enough to avoid anyone knocking on the door, but Sooyoung knew her time with Seulgi was short and precious.

Desperation began creeping into her voice, her eyes going wild. “Listen to me – even if this makes Joohyun happy, you’re going to be _miserable_ , Seulgi...hell, you’ve _been_ miserable for years already. What about your own happiness? I’ve read the lore on the red strings, I know what will happen if you cut your string.”

Seulgi shrugged, but Sooyoung knew the older woman was barely holding onto her nonchalant attitude. “You’ll lose her _forever_ , Seul. You can’t retie a string once it’s been cut, you _know_ that. Your connection is severed until the day you die and then what will you do?”

Seulgi lifted her head, trying but failing to keep back the tremor of her voice. “I can always find someone else.” Sooyoung scoffed, “Yeah right, as if you’d want anyone other than Joohyun. You’d probably try and find a new friend group, too, huh?” Seulgi swallowed, hard, Sooyoung’s onslaught of harsh words were causing a lump to form in her throat.

She backed against the far wall slowly, and Sooyoung inched forward, growing bolder by the second. “Don’t do this. We won’t _function_ the same without you, Seulgi. We want to help you, we need you…you can’t just push us all away like we never meant anything to you! We’re just as much a part of you as you are of us, not even cutting your string can make you deny that.”

Seulgi shakes her head and stalks over to the bathroom door, through with conversation. “What if Joohyun finds out afterwards that it’s you?” Sooyoung interjects, halting Seulgi’s hand as she reaches for out for the lock. “How do you think she’d feel, knowing that her _real_ soulmate just stood by and allowed her to walk into the arms of someone that she isn’t _truly_ supposed to spend the rest of her life with?”

Seulgi paused. “She’d understand,” she says quietly. “And if she doesn’t understand at first, then she _will_ understand, because she’ll know that she was the one who asked me in the first place.” Sooyoung gapes at her. “You’re…nearly her entire life’s been devoted to searching for you, you know that?” The taller woman takes a step forward, eyes pleading for Seulgi to change her mind.

“You’ve been right under her nose this whole time, what do you think that’ll do to her?” Seulgi purses her lips together. With one flick of her wrist, the bolt slides out of place. She had finally reached her breaking point. “We should head back before anyone notices we’ve been gone for too long, Sooyoung,” Seulgi murmurs, shakily moving her hand towards the door handle as she wipes away the last of her tear streaks.

They should’ve left a long time ago. Seulgi casts one last look at the unmoved woman before stepping out of the bathroom and into the light of the dining hall. She doesn’t look behind her to see if Sooyoung’s following her. Something tells the older woman that she isn’t, that Sooyoung is still backed up against the bathroom sinks, staring blankly at the door as it shut behind her.

As Seulgi makes her way back towards her table, she catches Joohyun’s eye, the last person she wants to see. As she gazes into the eyes of the woman she loves, she sees a hint of confusion and worry lingering in Joohyun’s pitch black pupils.

Horribly faking a smile in Joohyun’s direction, Seulgi alters her course from settling back down in her assigned seat to walking towards door of the restaurant as soon as she retrieves her purse from her seat. Seulgi needed to get out of there while she still had herself somewhat put together, she couldn’t break down now – not in front of all these people.

A second longer, and Seulgi would fall apart under Joohyun’s concerned gaze. When she’s made it a few feet away from the tables, she hears the scrape of a chair against the floor and knows it’s _her_ who’s trailing after her, no doubt suspecting that something was wrong.

But Seulgi’s got a head start and much longer legs, and as soon as Joohyun steps out of the front doors to look for her, Seulgi is gone. There’s not a trace left of the younger woman except for a small splatter of teardrops beneath Joohyun’s shoes.

Joohyun stands there for a moment, allowing the darkness to envelop her. The streetlight across the intersection threatens to flicker out. Joohyun takes a deep breath of the warm night air. Her head swivels left to right in hopes of catching a glimpse of Seulgi somewhere hidden in the narrow shadows of the street.

After another minute or two, when it’s clear Seulgi’s truly disappeared, Joohyun worries her bottom lip between her teeth. She swings the heavy glass doors of the building open, and steps through the threshold, returning to Seungwan’s side once more.

 

 

**

 

Seulgi barely gets a wink of sleep when she gets back to her hotel room. In fact, she doesn’t sleep at all.

Although she’s exhausted beyond belief after spilling everything to Sooyoung and had flopped down onto her bed the moment she’d unlocked the door, she had remained awake. How _could_ she have slept, anyways? It was a futile endeavor, one that she lost hope in quickly.

The author tossed and turned in her queen sized bed, staring up at the ceiling, silently asking the gods why they’d inflicted her with the curse of seeing the strings in the first place. Without the sight, she wouldn’t have known Joohyun was meant to be with her. Perhaps she would’ve been spared of the ever present pain radiating in her chest.

Her heart ache had grown, festered like some kind of cancerous wound in the pit of her chest. Seulgi had read somewhere that a person could _actually_ die from a broken heart. Did that mean when she watched and listened to Joohyun as she whispered the words, _I do,_ to Seungwan, she’d stumble over from her heartstrings snapping?

Turning her head to the side, Seulgi catches a glimpse at the clock on the bedside table. Four o’clock in the morning. Joohyun truly was getting married in a few hours, and something sputtered in Seulgi’s chest. She felt like a baby bird flapping its wings, too scared to jump from the nest and too weak to learn how to fly. The universe had left her with clipped wings.

While it was true Seulgi had _known_ this day had been coming, it still didn’t feel like it was unfolding before her. Maybe Sooyoung was right, maybe tomorrow there’d be some chance occurrence that would lead Joohyun and Seungwan’s wedding to be called off. _A lot can happen in less than twenty-four hours, Seulgi-yah._

Maybe in less than twenty-four hours, Joohyun had fallen out of love with Seungwan and would leave that church with her. Maybe she’d change her mind. She rolled her eyes at herself. Never before had she conjured up such silly thoughts, yet her brain continued to churn them out at an alarmingly fast rate.

In her sleep deprived state, Seulgi imagined a freak tornado threatening to upheave downtown Seoul and toss them along with skyscrapers and cars and road into the heavens above. Next, she thought of an earthquake opening up the ground and sucking them down into the soil. Finally, Seulgi visualizes herself _not_ going through with what Joohyun had asked.

The older woman would never be the wiser. But Seulgi knew she could never betray Joohyun’s trust. She also knew that, as Sooyoung had said, she would never try to find anyone else if she truly went through with Joohyun’s plan.

While she was certain in her mission, Seulgi hesitated. She had so many unanswered questions. The author desperately wished her grandmother were still alive so she could ask her for advice. Would her feelings for Joohyun vanish the second their string was severed? What would it _feel_ like, cutting through the fragile threads of fate? It was clear to Seulgi that her grandmother would’ve had at least some answers.

There was a reason why she’d had those scissors. Perhaps once in her lifetime, Seulgi’s grandmother had been a member of the _Atropos,_ how else would she have acquired such a beautiful pair of scissors in such a lovely case? The object itself felt charged with some sort of mystical power. Perhaps one day she’d ask her own mother about it, but for now, she needed to sort through her thoughts.

Groaning, Seulgi ran a hand over her face and leaned over to turn on the lamplight. Might as well think with the lights on, since she wouldn’t be lulled to sleep any time soon. Just as Sooyoung had suspected, Seulgi hadn’t been planning on staying rooted in Joohyun’s or Seungwan’s lives for much longer after the wedding took place.

Even Seulgi had limitations to her strength and willpower, and the young woman wasn’t sure how long she could stand being in the couple’s presence after knowing she was cheated of the one thing in life she’d always wished for the most. It had taken Seulgi ages to get used to the sight of Joohyun’s engagement ring, a foreign yet elegant band of gold peppered with glittering diamonds, encircling finger.

How would she fare when the actual ring was slipped upon her finger? When their strings had been cut? When Joohyun was no longer her soulmate? A few weeks prior, Seulgi had been looking up residences in the United States. Giant sprawls of houses in Hollywood, cozy little Victorian houses surrounded by forests in Maine and everything in between.

Halfway across the world sounded like a good distance to her. Over fifteen hours of flying would keep her friends at bay for a while. At least, that’s what the author was hoping. Yeri was always the wildcard amongst the five of them.

At the rate her brain was speeding, recounting the past nine years of her life, the present, the future, Seulgi was once more reminded that she would never be able to fall asleep. She sits up and opts for going over her and Joohyun’s plans for the next day, reviewing what Joohyun had whispered in her ear the moment she’d agreed

She was supposed to receive a special signal from the bride just before the part where she had to say, “I do.” Joohyun hadn’t told Seulgi what the signal itself would be and had only said that she’d know it when she saw it. This would force her to remain ever vigilant during the entire painful process, watching her soulmate’s every movement up on the stage of that church.

Another half hour had passed and yet it still hadn’t truly hit her that Joohyun was getting married. In an hour in a half, she would need to begin heading down to the wedding venue in order to get her hair and makeup started.

She was Joohyun’s maiden of honor, the one Joohyun had swore up and down would be able to hold her steady in the jittery moments before the ceremony began. At the dinner rehearsal, Joohyun and Seungwan had given a toast. Seulgi tried not to cry when Joohyun brought her up in the speech, naming Seulgi as one of her most treasured friends.

Joohyun had ended her cheers to the author with a phrase that had struck a chord with her. “As you once said to me,” the older woman had said, staring straight into Seulgi’s eyes. She’d felt transfixed, drawn in by Joohyun’s magnetic gaze. The glimmer of gilded gold made her squint her eyes as it caught the light.

She raised her glass of red wine, mimicking the actions of those around her, nodding her head at Joohyun’s words. There was a sort of odd magnetic moment charging the room between them, Seulgi could feel it humming around her body, reaching out for Joohyun. Deep down, she prayed none of Joohyun or Seungwan’s guests had the sight.

 _“Someday, we’ll grow old and gray…together.”_ If only Joohyun had realized the weight of her words. Hearing her drunken confession falling from her angelic lips finally caused Seulgi to shed a tear, tinted with the gold of the dining hall’s lights.

Mistaking the tear for one of joy, Joohyun giggled and dipped her head, ending the toast with a tilt of her wine flute. Seulgi’s hand trembled as she tipped glasses with everyone seated around her, taking a generous sip of the liquid before calming the burning of her cheeks.

It would be her job to be by Joohyun’s side up until the absolute last second of the wedding. As the maiden of honor, Seulgi would be practically glued to Joohyun’s side before she would need to file out with the other bridesmaids and situate herself out onstage.

She would be the one soothing frayed nerves and making sure everything went smoothly, she would be the one comforting Joohyun that everything would be alright, that this was the right choice, that it didn’t matter Seungwan wasn’t her real soulmate because she would do everything Joohyun had asked for. She would keep her promise. Just like she always had.

And now the day was here. If Seulgi hadn’t already cried half the night away, she would’ve burst out sobbing in that moment. But for once, she had finally run out of tears to shed. Seulgi felt as though she were suspended in time, lurching up from on her queen-sized hotel bed and dragging her feet to the bathroom to take a long, hot shower.

Flipping on the bathroom lights, Seulgi stared at herself long and hard in the giant mirror on the wall. She had been too tired to even strip herself of the elegant gown she’d worn to the dinner rehearsal. She’d fallen asleep with her makeup still on, her foundation and mascara smeared against the ivory of her face like ink.

At least her exterior matched her interior now – a ship wrecked in the middle of the sea, no hope in sight. She’d stopped shooting flares a long time ago. It was time to let the waves consume her. Cursing slightly at her laziness, she began rummaging around in her toiletry bag for a set of makeup remover wipes. She rubbed at her tired eyes, willing life to spring back into their cold, dark abysses.

As she does so, she feels the swishing of her string’s tassel brushing gently against her cheek. The sensation almost makes her see red with anger, but after a few seconds of toying with the cord, smoothing over it with the pad of her thumb, melancholy sets in again. Sighing, Seulgi hastily runs her fingers through her tangled, bedridden brown locks.

Today marked the end of her bond with Joohyun. She only had a few hours to call herself Joohyun’s soulmate before it was all over. One snip was all it took. Seulgi turned on her heel and began warming the water for her shower.

The eerie blue glow of the morning seeped in from the large set of windows the bathroom offered her. The light suited Seulgi’s somber mood to a tee, and when she stepped inside of the shower stall, she prayed it would pour rain down on them in vain.

Once she had finished her shower, Seulgi towel dried her hair off and sat on the edge of her bed, swaddled up in a bathrobe. _At least I remembered to hook my phone up to the charger last night,_ Seulgi congratulated herself snarkily, swiping the device off of the tiny bed stand. She unhooked the phone and began scrolling absentmindedly through the excess of her notifications.

 While she shrugged off drops of water from her shoulders and hair, she went through countless messages from Yeri and Sooyoung. Both of the younger women were pleading for Seulgi to reconsider breaking off her ties to Joohyun, to speak to Joohyun while she still had the chance to do so.

Seulgi tossed her phone back onto the bed, facedown, and told herself that there was nothing that could possibly change her mind. If this is what fate desired, then so be it. Who was she to fight the universe? Besides, would Joohyun ever consider taking back what she’d asked for? _Hours_ before the wedding? _Minutes? Milliseconds?_

Time was something that had never been on Seulgi’s side, and as a beam of warming sunlight fell upon her, Seulgi knew she was doomed. Son Seungwan had somehow stolen Seulgi’s spotlight, had transfixed Joohyun so much that the strings of fate never crossed the older woman’s mind. Not that Seulgi could even blame her for falling for the Canadian.

 The transfer student was always angelic in nature, rivaling even Seulgi’s level of selflessness at times. Maybe this quality of the Canadian should’ve made Seulgi more cautious, more concerned about her and Joohyun’s relationship. But she’d fallen underneath the shorter woman’s spell as well, too blind to realize that perhaps Joohyun was falling deeper as well.

As Seulgi grew closer with Joohyun, she also became closer with Seungwan, they came like a buy one, get one free deal. She had grown to love Seungwan. How could she do this to them? Spoil the wedding on the _day_ of the wedding, right in front of them? Seulgi knew there was only one choice she could go through with that wouldn’t bring any shame to her friends in front of their extended families.

Steeling herself, Seulgi glances at the clock again. She had an hour until to finish getting ready, find a parking spot, and walk into the double doors of the church her soulmate was getting married in. There, not only would she symbolically help her give her best friend’s hand in marriage to Seungwan, but literally do so as well.

She stood once more and maneuvered over to the closet where her sharp suit, dress shirt, pressed pants, and dress shoes awaited her. As she laid out the clothes, she felt the inside pocket of the suit jacket and felt a shock run through her fingertips all the way down her spine.

The scissors were still there, just as she’d left them. Gently, Seulgi gripped the cool, slender box containing the small pair of shears and tugged them from out of the jacket pocket. In truth, Seulgi could have chosen any pair she liked to severe herself from Joohyun’s future, but it didn’t feel right to her to use something she’d see around the house.

 Last weekend while cleaning her house, she’d found a small rectangular box amongst her bookshelf. It had been addressed to her from her grandmother, her mother’s mother. When she spotted it, Seulgi had frowned, confused as to how she’d never noticed it before.

It seemed to have escaped from her memory entirely. When she lifted the thick, velvety lid, she gasped. Laying beneath a bed of nearly translucent filler paper were the scissors. With a shaking hand, Seulgi carefully picked away the lumps of crumpled paper until the shears were left laying on a bed of soft red.

They looked like a beautiful weapon, something a lady would conceal in the folds of her dress back in the Victorian era for protection. The dual blades glittered before her, meeting at a point so sharp Seulgi had almost mistaken the object for a knife.

Not only that, but the shape of its handles were unique. She’d had never seen a pair of scissors with handles that met in a perfect oval before, let alone be forged from gold. With one finger, she traced the intricate lace of gold autumn leaves and shining pearls weaving throughout the design of the handles. Instantly, Seulgi understood what these had been meant for, a sinking feeling in her chest.

She had been given yet another sign from the universe. Taking the object into her hand, Seulgi was amazed once more to find how well they suited her hand. It felt as if she were wielding a foil, a sort of odd sensation of power flowed from the instrument.

Mesmerized by its beauty, Seulgi had ran her index finger against one of the blades experimentally. When she drew her hand away, she’d almost believed she hadn’t been cut. But a second later, red had ran down the length of her hand so quickly that Seulgi dropped the scissors on the floor and rushed to get a Band-Aid and stop the bleeding.

 _At least it’d be over quick_ , Seulgi thought to herself, turning the box over in her hands. She would barely feel a thing, right? She didn’t have time to think about this. Pushing the never ending questions from her mind, Seulgi returned to the bathroom to blow dry her hair.

She dressed herself in the mirror, gave herself another once over. She didn’t look half as bad as she thought she would on the day of Joohyun’s wedding. The woman standing before her looked grave, almost as if she were attending a funeral.

Hit with the irony, Seulgi turned away and snagged her car keys off of the bedside table. In a few minutes, the bags beneath her eyes would soon be rendered away with the power of makeup, the hair stylists would work magic on her hair, and she would greet Joohyun with a smile on her face. Joohyun would never be the wiser.

The author hoped that the older woman would be too preoccupied with the wedding to notice her too much. As she made her way towards the hotel elevator with heavy footsteps, she pressed a hand against her breast pocket, feeling the scissor’s box against her fingertips. While waiting for the ground floor, her phone buzzed.

Glancing down, she read a string of texts that made her stomach turn over. The latest one was from the bride herself, and it read. _I need you, where are you?_ Thumbing through the rest of the messages, she noted Seungwan, Yeri, and Sooyoung were all urging her to come as quickly as she possibly could.

 _Joohyun must have started panicking already,_ Seulgi mused, stepping out of the elevator and into the hotel lobby. She dipped her head politely at the receptionist and made her way out of the front doors and into the parking lot. As her car peeled away from the hotel, Seulgi allowed for one lone, last tear to well up and roll down her face.

 _I’m scared, too, Hyun-ah._ She thought to herself, wiping the tear away quickly with the back of her sleeve. The author made herself promise that _that_ was truly the last of the waterworks for the day. Joohyun would need her to be strong, the anchor that would keep her sanity, and Seulgi would do just that.

As she turned onto the main road, she saw that her prayers hadn’t been answered, reminding her once more that it had always been her against the world. The day was bright and temperate. Cotton ball clouds were sprinkled across the deep sea blue of the sky. They were tinted with vibrant gold and purple hues. The sun was drawing itself slowly above the horizon, shaking off the last of its slumber.

It was the perfect weather for a wedding.

In the distance, Seulgi could hear the soft chiming of church bells.


	8. Wedding Bells Sing

Saint Anthony’s was a beautifully designed gothic cathedral. The exterior was so pristinely white that Seulgi nearly blinded herself when she glanced up at its twin spires. With its intricately carved statues lining the exterior, smooth marble face, and elegant flying buttresses, Saint Anthony’s looked like the dwelling of angels on earth.

She paused in front of the giant bronze doors, listening to the sound of the bells as they sang, calling out towards the heavens themselves. It was meant to be a glorious, lifting sound, and yet Seulgi felt the weight of the world crashing down on her shoulders, threatening to pummel her into the ground.

 _This would_ be the kind of place Joohyun would get married, Seulgi thought, shaking her head with a swirl of bittersweet emotions. She hadn’t even glanced at the wedding invitation, even after Joohyun’s coaxing. Rather, Seulgi merely requested for her secretary to make the arrangements for her, sparing her from more hardship.

Consequently, she had no idea that the location would be here – somewhere where the gap between the celestial and the mortal was erased, intertwined. Somewhere just as achingly beautiful to look at as the bride herself. It suits the occasion perfectly, Seulgi thinks.

Without sparing another moment, Seulgi took a deep breath, and headed for the door. When she stepped inside the interior of Saint Anthony’s cathedral, it felt as though she were walking straight into a vacuum of muted silence, or perhaps a beautifully constructed trap in disguise. The door boomed shut behind her, echoing throughout the room.

The melody of the bells were softened considerably, and the only sounds were of soft murmuring and the scuffling of shoes against the marble floor as workers set about with the decorations. People flitting back and forth behind her in a rush. There were places to go, people to see, and though Seulgi needed to find the way towards the dressing rooms, she stood there, transfixed by her surroundings, hardly paying anyone else any mind.

Large expanses of stain glass windows cast vibrant hues throughout the giant room, sparkling with reds and blues and pinks and yellows. The ribbed vaults of the ceiling struck a kind of awe within her, as if she were a child discovering the wonders of the world for the first time. A welcome distraction to the events that would no doubt occur within the next two and a half hours.

She fought the urge to run her hand along a nearby column and feel the cooling sensation of the stone against her skin, the exquisiteness of the design was mesmerizing. A set of timid, clicking footsteps and a gentle voice interrupted her quiet admiration.

“Are you Kang Seulgi? Joohyun’s maid of honor?”

Just like that, the spell was broken. The author turns and plasters a smile across her tired features, turning on her charming socializing skills with the flip of a switch. “Yep, that’s me,” Seulgi replied with a small chuckle. “Could you point me to where she is? I’m running a bit late and she’s probably about to wring my neck for it,” Seulgi continued.

The two women share a laugh, but both know that Seulgi’s words hold a seriousness to them. “Follow me,” the wedding organizer replies, waving a hand over her shoulder. The pair of them set off down a long corridor near the side of the church, past rooms filled with bridesmaids and worried parents all talking loudly and changing and getting their makeup or hair done.

The very air itself in this corridor should have felt lighter, with the sound of laughter and excited tones filling the air. She catches snippets of conversations, a bridesmaid asking her friend if her hair looked okay, someone asking if anyone knew how to tie a tie properly, 

They stop near the very end of the hall, at a room with its door closed. Seulgi feels a rush of sickness overtake her for a moment as she takes in the gravity of the situation for the millionth time since she’d woken up. _I’m at Joohyun’s wedding and I’m not the one she’s marrying. I’m about to cut our strings forever._

The words repeated themselves in a kind of mantra, but for once, Seulgi didn’t cry. “Here we are!” The wedding organizer announced. “Seungwan’s room is in the corridor adjacent, at the very end if you wish to visit her beforehand. Miss Yeri and Miss Sooyoung have asked me to let you know they’ve got her covered until the wedding begins.”

Seulgi nods her head in understanding. She felt her heart leaping in her chest, burning against the case of the thread cutting snippers in her breast pocket. “Thank you,” she told the organizer. She watched as the other woman bowed politely and began walking off, no doubt to smooth out another kink in the wedding plans.

After making sure that no one was watching, Seulgi looked at her watch. _One hour, forty-five minutes until the guests started arriving._ Knowing this, Seulgi felt a breath of relief. It would all be over soon. She’d get her makeup done and her hair straightened, which would take at least a decade, and she’d be at Joohyun’s beck and call for whatever time was left of that.

It’d be over like ripping off a Band-Aid. Or at least, that’s what she hoped for. Seulgi took a shaky breath, smoothing out the folds of her suit, and rapped her knuckles twice against the thick wooden door. She waited for the sound of the love of her life’s voice to ring out to grant herself entry. But nothing every came.

After another moment’s pause, she decides to press her ear against the door. As soon as she does so, Seulgi hears nothing but the chatter of a plethora of voices and swings open the door unannounced. Instantly, she’s greeted by a flurry of frantic movement in every direction.

The dressing room is overflowing with more bridesmaids who paid Seulgi no mind. They were too busy stumbling about the large space in their stiletto heels, attempting to fix their makeup and long, flowing dresses in the rows of mirrors lining the wall as best as they could.

Makeup artists and relatives fluttered about the room, dusting off faces filled with makeup, helping with putting up the women’s hair. In the center of it all, Joohyun’s own relatives hovered around the bride to be. Four of her aunts fluffed Joohyun’s veil, tightening the dress, fawning over her elegance.

She’s all that Seulgi can see, a crystal vision clad in an ivory wedding gown fit for a princess, and it’s like Seulgi’s falling in love all over again. Her long dark hair tumbles down past her graceful shoulder blades and well defined collarbones, framing her pale, porcelain face. In spite of all the years they’ve been friends, Joohyun hadn’t seemed to have aged a bit.

The bride still looked just as she had, all those years ago, when Seulgi had shyly sat across from her in their old high school cafeteria for the first time. Just as she began traveling back in time, reminiscing on the days before Joohyun and Seungwan and Joohyun and Suho and Joohyun and Bogum, the bride looks up.

 

Joohyun’s stony expression transforms the moment their eyes meet in the mirror before her. “Seulgi! You made it!” The bride exclaims joyously, gesturing for Seulgi to come closer as she waves off her relatives. The other women mumble about fixing Joohyun’s hair later, and disperse throughout the room to assist other struggling bridesmaids.

Abiding to Joohyun’s wishes, Seulgi picks her way towards Joohyun’s chair through the chaos surrounding them. She narrowly avoids a bridesmaid stomping her heel into her shoe and a puff of hairspray to the face as she maneuvers across the room. “Good morning,” Seulgi replies, resting an arm over Joohyun’s chair.

“So, what do you think?” Joohyun asks giddily, whirling around to face her as she approaches. There’s a gorgeous smile spreading across the bride’s hopeful face, ruby red lips pulling away to show off a set of pearly white teeth.

Seulgi tries to fight off the tears she feels boiling at the corners of her eyes. “You look as beautiful as ever, Joohyun-ah,” the younger woman confesses, choking back a chuckle. Joohyun giggles and rolls her eyes.

She swats at Seulgi’s arm playfully. “Not _me_ , silly. What do you think about the venue? Have you seen the display yet? I haven’t been able to leave this room for _hours_.” Joohyun sends a playful glare towards her aunts, narrowing her eyes at them as they mill about the room. “They’ve been keeping me prisoner in here!”

Seulgi barks out a laugh, shaking her head at the older woman’s antics. “Everything’s absolutely wonderful, Joohyun. I saw them setting up the altar and it’s going to knock everyone to high heaven, I guarantee it. This has to be one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen.” Relief flooded Joohyun’s tense countenance and it was then that Seulgi saw just how worried the bride was about the wedding.

 It was strangely easy to pretend everything was okay when Joohyun was by her side, almost as if the presence of her soulmate was soothing away the pain. But it dawned on her again, the glinting of Seungwan’s ring on her left hand and the shining of red on the other, the veil adorning Joohyun’s brow, the worry shining in the bride’s eyes, this was _really_ happening. Joohyun and Seungwan were getting married, and Seulgi was going to cut her string.

 “You know, there’s still time to back out,” Seulgi says lamely. She was desperately trying to keep up the appearance of being upbeat, to conceal the way she suddenly felt so weak that her knees were threatening to give way beneath her. Her hands had become balmy, so she clasped them together behind her back. Joohyun laughs as she stands, fixing her lipstick, not hearing the despair in Seulgi’s defeated voice.

Seulgi could feel her pores glistening from perspiration as she looked around Joohyun’s dressing room, surely making her look as if she were some sort of sick hospital patient. “Are you okay?” Joohyun asks, worriedly pressing an open palm to the taller woman’s forehead as one of her mother’s friends began fixing her wedding dress from gaining any more wrinkles. “You seem a little pale, Seulgi.”

Seulgi’s stomach lurched at the contact. She felt the grazing of Joohyun’s string against her skin, searing at her soul. “Perfectly fine,” Seulgi replied with a forced laugh, “It’s probably just nerves or something.” A knowing glint flashed through the bride’s eyes, and she lowered her voice as she murmured into Seulgi’s ear.

“You can do it, I believe in you, Seulgi-ah,” her soulmate murmured quietly, breath fanning against Seulgi’s neck. She eyed the room cautiously, ensuring that no one was listening in on their conversation. When Joohyun seemed satisfied none of her aunts or makeup artists were eavesdropping, she continued. “After all these years, you’ve never let me down before, and I know you won’t fail me now, not when I need you the most.”

When Joohyun pulls away, she remains hovering within Seulgi’s personal space, nose to nose with her, knowing she has Seulgi’s full attention. “Are you sure you want this? Cutting your string…choosing Seungwan?” Seulgi whimpered, one last desperate attempt of hers to make Joohyun call off the one wish she’d promised to make come true.

She watches the crinkling of the corners of the bride’s eyes, the parting of her cherry red lips into a brilliant white smile, and her heart sinks. “I’ve never been surer in my life, Seul,” Joohyun confirms, pressing a kiss to the author’s cheek before turning around to finish her makeup. She doesn’t notice the way Seulgi freezes again, her words echoing in her ears.

“Now, then. I think _someone’s_ still got their hair and makeup to do, eh?” Seulgi’s cheeks flush with embarrassment, and she fiddles with her hands. She desperately tries to come up with something to say, anything that’ll dispel any worries Joohyun might have. After all, she was still Joohyun’s maid of honor.

When the bride notices Seulgi hesitating rather than finding a makeup artist to help her, her gaze flicks up. “I’m sorry I was late, Joohyun. I overslept a little later than I’d meant to.” Joohyun smiles in the reflection of the mirror. She sets down her phone she’d been fiddling with and shrugs, the gesture so casual and still so breathtaking.

Joohyun’s endless amount of beauty seemed to be taunting her, reminding her that Joohyun would never be able to be hers once she did what she asked. She gleamed with everything Seulgi could never hope to have.

“You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

 

 

**

 

 

She sat in a chair drawn up beside Joohyun’s, watching the bride out of the corner of her eye as she chatted somewhat nervously with her relatives. As she did so, Seulgi worried her bottom lip between her teeth, unable to tear her gaze away from the striking woman and the crimson cord strung around her finger.

Sooyoung’s warning from last night echoed in her ears like the resonating sound of the church bells. If Seulgi cut their strings, she would never be able to retie them together. They would forever be incompatible, not even another with the power of the sight could rebind their fate together. That was the catch to such a power; you had to ensure your actions were worthy of such a consequence.

There was no going back once that line was crossed. But Joohyun didn’t know that, didn’t _need_ to know that. The author hoped the bride would never find out. Even if she did somehow discover that she and Seulgi were soulmates, if Sooyoung or Yeri ended up spilling her secret, which she doubted, Seulgi would ensure she’d be long gone by then.

As Seulgi lost herself in deep thought, Joohyun was listening to a long winded story from a particularly chatty older woman, politely nodding her head although Seulgi could tell she wasn’t listening at all. She raised her right hand to rest her chin against her fist and the string tied around her ring finger strained against Seulgi’s hand.

But Seulgi did not dare move a muscle. One of Joohyun’s aunts had set about straightening the last of Seulgi’s wavy brown locks, another daubed blush across her pale cheeks, and yet another was “fixing” Seulgi’s perfectly tied tie and dusting off her suit with a lint roller. It was as if they sensed she’d needed to get ready after she’d finished speaking with Joohyun, bringing over the chair and the makeup and the straightener over to her themselves.

“Are you nervous?” One of Joohyun’s relatives asked next. The bride paused, thinking. _Twenty minutes till the guests arrive, one hour before the ceremony starts,_ Seulgi internalized, watching the way Joohyun’s eyebrows crinkled in the middle when she frowned. The aunts were just now putting the final touches on Seulgi’s wedding look.

Soon, Seulgi would need to start getting ready to line up onstage with the other bridesmaids, joining Yeri and Sooyoung and all of their other acquaintances. Internally, Seulgi ran through the wedding plans once more, making sure everything was memorized perfectly. She only got one shot at this before everyone realized what was happening and didn’t want to risk being more obvious than she had to be.

When the ceremony begins, Seulgi would stand on the opposite side of the altar from Seungwan as everyone waited for Joohyun to be walked down the grand aisle of the cathedral by her father. A beautiful bride, but not _her_ bride. Not hers, never hers. Fate had decided. She would do her best to hold back any tears if they came, to swallow down the lump of emotion building in her throat, and then she’d wait and watch for Joohyun’s signal.

Then she’d whip out the golden pair of scissors from the breast pocket of her suit jacket. In just one precise cut, it would all be over. She’d be forever severed from Joohyun. Free of all the pain, the years of suffering and hoping left to no avail. But was that truly what Seulgi wanted? She’d be lying if there wasn’t a tiny part of her still yearning to one day be able to face Joohyun down the aisle just like Seungwan would.

Ever since Seulgi had known Joohyun, she had built up a kind of perfect kingdom in her mind, a depiction of their lives would be like intertwined, gilded with happy thoughts and future possibilities to come. All that was left of it now was a tarnished, hollowed out construct. But the dream still persisted, a faded mirage yet something Seulgi couldn’t help but cling to.

No doubt would she keep longing for fate to intervene until Seulgi herself severed the last strand of her string. _Fifty minutes till guests start to arrive._ Though her heart leapt up her throat, Seulgi remained outwardly calm, keeping her expression pleasantly stoic.

Maybe she’d always been expecting this outcome since the day she’d met Joohyun. It was the universe, not her, who commanded the outcome of every relationship bound together by the red strings. She reminded herself for the hundredth time that it wasn’t unheard of for people to end up with someone other than her soulmate.

It was just that Seulgi had never expected it to happen to her, of all people, someone who held the power to gain insight on who she was meant to spend the rest of her days with. The author felt as if she were on the cusp of walking through the gates of the heavens, teetering over the border between light and darkness. She was terrified of what was to come, but everything was out of her hands.

Tuning out Joohyun’s answer, Seulgi thought back on the events that had occurred last night at the wedding dinner rehearsal. She found it odd that after she’d arrived at Saint Anthony’s, her phone hadn’t rung with a single text from neither Sooyoung or Yeri. The author’s first thought was that the engaged couple had merely accepted Seulgi’s choices.

But when she was allowed to ponder a little bit more on the matter, she had an inkling feeling that the two must be plotting something. After all, the way Sooyoung had been quite adamant in attempting to convince her to leave the strings alone. She and Yeri had rather stubborn personalities, and she wasn’t expecting either of the young women to let her exert her powers without putting up a fight.

 _Seungwan._ The Canadian woman’s name then sent Seulgi down yet another long rabbit hole in her racing mind. Son Seungwan, one of her best friends. A humble, charitable music teacher who loved what she did for a living and loved her fiancé even more. She had been the kind hearted college student who had helped Seulgi when she struggled with her English courses without asking for anything in return.

Seungwan, the person Joohyun wished to settle down with. How would the Canadian woman feel if she knew what Seulgi and Joohyun had been conspiring behind her back? One of her closest friends and her fiancé? Did she even care about the strings of fate? Did she believe in them in the slightest? The topic of Seulgi’s powers hadn’t ever come up between them, did Seungwan even _know_ Seulgi held the sight?

And then, in the midst of all her questioning, another thought sprang up from the recess of her mind. It taunted at her quietly, like a warning stemming from the panic slowly building up within her body. _What if Seungwan knew? What if she’s held the power of the sight this whole time?_ A chill ran up Seulgi’s spine. Goosebumps dotted across her skin. _Could_ Seungwan know? It was possible that Sooyoung and Yeri had spoken to her.

The two of them were with Seungwan in her dressing room. They would’ve had ample time to tell Seungwan everything, recounting Seulgi’s heartbroken tale of her misfortune with fate. But would they? And would Seungwan even believe them if they had? Sooyoung and Yeri had no tangible evidence to back up any claims they could’ve made. Anything they could say would merely stir up trouble for the already anxious brides.

No. Sooyoung and Yeri wouldn’t compromise Seulgi’s situation to Seungwan. They’d take it up with Seulgi herself, _that_ she was certain of. She would have to be on the lookout during the ceremony for any tricks the younger women might try and pull. While Seulgi held a spark of faith in fate to keep her and Joohyun together, it was quickly sputtering out of existence.

The clock kept ticking, the minutes where Seulgi could say that Bae Joohyun was her soulmate were dwindling. She felt the very essence of time running out, for there to be any other outcome than Seungwan and Joohyun walking through the front doors of Saint Anthony’s as both wives and soulmates.

“Hey…you keep zoning out,” Joohyun speaks up, nudging Seulgi with her elbow. Seulgi jerks her eyes up from the floor to see that the crowd of aunts had taken to speaking in a circle in a far corner of the room, entertaining themselves rather than the bride to be.

The touch effectively snapped Seulgi out of her stupor, and she flashes Joohyun what she hopes is a reassuring grin. “And here I was thinking _you_ were going to be the one comforting _me_ right now,” Joohyun teased lightly, grinning brilliantly at her. Breaking out into a bout of nervous laughter, Seulgi shakes her head, eyes lowered to the floor.

“You’re right, I’m sorry…just got a lot on my mind right now.” In sync, the three aunts who’d been tending to Seulgi step back, admiring their handiwork. In the warm glow of the lit mirror, Seulgi could almost imagine this as her and Joohyun’s wedding day.

They looked the part, Joohyun sitting prim and proper in her wedding gown and Seulgi in her pressed black suit and tie. They looked so hauntingly beautiful together, their strings stretching across the arms of the chairs and coiling together, glittering from the gold beads.

Seulgi feels herself collapsing from the inside out just thinking about everything that had happened, the twists of fate that had lead them to this point, trying to pinpoint the exact moment Seulgi had gotten it all wrong and caused them to be here. What could she have possibly done in her past lives to deserve a fate as cruel as this?

Soulmates sitting a mere hand’s breadth apart from each other, fate having pulled them so close yet refusing to allow them to be together. Seulgi hadn’t stood a chance from the beginning. Desperately, Seulgi tries in vain to hold onto this moment, this brief pause where she could believe, just for a second, that this wasn’t what it seemed.

That the worried look brewing within Joohyun’s eyes stemmed from worry over _them_ getting married, rather than Joohyun fretting over if she would actually go through with her request or not. That maybe, just maybe, Joohyun loved her, too. But then Seulgi’s imaginary kingdom come dreams were lost to a room erupting in disorder.

“You’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding!” An aunt screeched, gaping in the direction of the door. The two young women whip around in their chairs to see who was intruding, and Seulgi felt her heart sink as Seungwan carefully shut the heavy wooden door behind her. The Canadian woman held one hand over her face, covering her eyes.

“Well, _technically_ speaking _,_ I can’t see anything right now,” Seungwan chuckled, causing the rest of the room to sound off with soft giggling. “I think that means we’re safe, right, sweetheart?” Seungwan called out a little bit louder, intending for Joohyun to answer her. Seulgi watches Joohyun break out into a smile, shaking her head as she watched Seungwan cautiously take a step further into the room.

“I suppose,” Joohyun replies from her chair, glancing at Seulgi. Seungwan accidentally runs into a table and grimaces. “I’ve got a message for my soon to be wife…if she’d like to hear it, she might want to come closer before I impale my side on another tabletop.” A chorus of voices erupt, all exclaiming “aw” or “that’s so adorable”, as Joohyun blushes furiously in her chair. Once more, she looks to Seulgi, as if asking permission.

Wordlessly, the author dips her head and holds a hand out towards where Seungwan stands by the door. Joohyun carefully makes her way towards Seungwan, wrapping a hand over Seungwan’s to ensure the other woman had no way of peeking. The Canadian woman squeals with delight, and everyone turns back to what they were doing prior to her entry in order to give the couple some privacy.

Yet Seulgi watches, crestfallen, as the two of them whisper into each other’s ears. Her spirit sinks into the floorboards, her mood drooping even further. She stares at Seungwan and Joohyun through the mirror in front of her as she pretends to fix a patch of her makeup with a powder compact. They seemed so breathtakingly happy together.

She wondered just how much happier they’d be with their true soulmates. But that wouldn’t matter soon. _Thirty minutes till the guests started arriving._ Seulgi felt more than prepared to finally set both her and Joohyun free. Fate could wait. The wedding, on the other hand, could not.

As if on cue, Sooyoung poked her head through the door, followed by Yeri. They beckoned for Seulgi to come with them. Only then did Seulgi realize that the gaggle of bridesmaids slowly began draining out of the room, one by one. “What’s going on?” Seulgi asked, instantly throwing her guard up.

Yeri quirked her lips into a slight frown, opening the door wider to allow the steady stream of leaving bridesmaids out of the room. “Didn’t you read the wedding schedule that was going around earlier, Seul?” The young woman asks, Sooyoung propping her chin up on her shoulder. “Everyone but the two brides are supposed to be helping with the last of the wedding preparations before the rest of the guests arrive.”

Seulgi takes one last lingering look at Joohyun and Seungwan from the mirror. her heart aching in her chest, torn because she knows she can’t stop the wedding without tearing the intricate ways all of their lives have knotted together. The author stands from her chair, finally accepting defeat. “Alright,” Seulgi says, making her way towards the door.

Though their hands brush together as she passes by, she dares not spare Joohyun a second glance. _Twenty-five minutes till the guests arrived._ She takes a deep breath, ignoring the electricity surging over her skin at the sensation of her and Joohyun’s strings reaching out for each other, intertwining from across the room.

She’s the last to vacate the room, and when she closes the door behind her, she sees Joohyun watching her from the reflection of the mirror. Joohyun’s caught in Seungwan’s embraced, an undecipherable look in her eyes with her arms wrapped around Seungwan’s shoulders and half of her face buried in Seungwan’s neck.

The two brides to be sway along to a silent song, and Seulgi quickly looks away. The door shuts with a small _boom_ , as if Seulgi had just enclosed herself in her own tomb. Yeri and Sooyoung stand before her, scrutinizing her.

“Well, lead the way,” she says to them. The two of them spring into action, taking quick strides down the corridor. Seulgi, on the other hand, dragged behind. Her ankles felt like they were being loaded down with the weight of her crashing kingdom come, knowing that each step takes her further and further away from her true destiny.


	9. Cut by the Crimson Cord

_Are you sure?_ Seulgi mouthed to Joohyun. The bride was waiting patiently in front of the altar, looking at Seulgi with her big brown eyes. Her hands were folded neatly around her bridal bouquet, a lovely mix of purple-blue sweet peas, lavender, cornflowers, tweedia, and delphiniums. The wedding theme was one of brilliant pristine whites and shades of baby blue, which came as a surprise. Blue wasn’t Joohyun’s favorite color.

Anyone who even remotely knew the older woman was aware of the fact she favored a lavender hue over any other color under the rainbow. “This is Seungwan’s doing for sure,” Seulgi had overheard Yeri mutter earlier, while they were helping finish up the decorating. Luckily, neither of the women seemed to remember the impending doom of Seulgi’s string, too distracted with making sure everything looked perfect for Joohyun’s ceremony.

Yeri had shaken her head as she strung translucent pastel cerulean streamers over the back of the altar’s flower display, though a fond smile was spreading across her face. Sooyoung had laughed, shaking her head while rearranging the pots. “Who knew she’d be the one to win the wedding decorating game.” The engaged couple giggled together before finishing their decorating, leaving Seulgi to watch them silently.

Seulgi stared at the bouquet and the line of crimson running from it to where she stood, trembling in line a few feet behind Seungwan. A sick feeling rolled over in her stomach, as if she were flipping cartwheels instead of standing still. Now that it was finally time to do the deed, Seulgi was finally feeling everything kick in. The urge to throw up came suddenly, but thankfully died down as quickly as it appeared. Dots began clouding her vision, causing her to struggle to maintain her focus.

Joohyun’s bouquet was a larger version of the one Seulgi held in her own hands, which were shaking ever so slightly as her nerves frayed and her body became overwhelmed with the task at hand. She was going to cut her life from Joohyun’s, then fasten the bride’s fallen string to Seungwan’s. It was an act permanently irreversible. Once Seulgi did this, she would never be able to get Joohyun back by retying their strings together.

Not even the power of another person with the sight of the strings could undo this deed. Dragging her thoughts from that, Seulgi allowed her gaze to flit from Joohyun to the Canadian woman. Her best friend stood tall across from Joohyun, completely oblivious to their exchange. The Canadian woman was holding one of Joohyun’s hands as everyone looked on and listened to the droning of the priest.

Her thumb stroked a slow, small circle on top of Joohyun’s skin. It would’ve been sweet if Seulgi hadn’t felt another wave of nausea wash over her again. Joohyun nodded her head ever so slightly at her, repeating the signal to Seulgi. She looked like some kind of crystal vision, standing there with her wedding veil spilling out from behind her like a spirit and the fine cut of her wedding dress accentuating her figure.

She was like this oblivious, innocent angel who blinked at her expectantly, waiting for her to make the next move, to end things once and for all. Seulgi took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then flicked them back open again, trying to calm herself. Everything had come down to the wire. Every choice, sentence, and failed attempt had led Seulgi down this path to a wedding where Joohyun would never get to be her bride again.

Yet even now, as she watched Joohyun with lifeless eyes and a stoic expression, she couldn’t find it in herself to rebel any further. Fate had dealt its final hand, and all of the cards were in its favor. It was time for her to accept it. Joohyun wasn’t hers anymore.

On the other side of the altar, Sooyoung and Yeri seem to be furiously boring holes into her. Their eyes widened with silent pleas, begging her to not go through with it. Their knuckles were white, gripping their bouquets tight in their hands, straining against their own will.

But by that point, Seulgi couldn’t have cared less what they thought. Regardless of the string strung around her and Joohyun’s fingers, binding them together, there was one thing for certain Seulgi knew. It was her duty as Joohyun’s soulmate to provide the older woman with whatever she desired, as long as it was within her doing.

And even if it meant giving up their connection forever, even if it made her no better than the _Atropos_ , Seulgi would keep her promise. The author would go to her grave if it meant doing her part for Joohyun. That’s how devoted she was to the older woman, to the one who held her heart in her hands and knew nothing of it as she cast it away for someone else’s.

With one final deep breath, Seulgi reached into the breast pocket of her suit jacket and retrieved the gold encrusted pair of scissors she’d been concealing. It seemed as if they sparked at her touch, sending an electrifying jolt through her veins. The sensation reminded her of the solidity, the utter reality of this moment.

Despite the tears beginning to well up in her eyes and blurring away bits of her vision, Seulgi couldn’t seem to break away from Joohyun’s magnetic gaze. She slips her fingers into the handle of the intricate scissors, a flash of gilded fate in the palm of her hand. Deep down, she prayed no one in the audience was taking any notice of her as she did this, drawing the scissors out discreetly and hiding them behind her bouquet.

Time ticked away with each heavy thud of her heart, and Seulgi began to feel even more sick to her stomach. Her body exuded nervous energy, she was having trouble keeping the flood of thoughts bombarding her mind under lock and key. _Are you sure?_ Seulgi mouths again, one more time, giving the unknowing bride one final chance to stop everything in its trakcs before she snipped their lives away from each other for good.

As she awaited Joohyun’s answer, it was as if every moment she and the older woman had ever spent together flashed before her eyes. Like some kind of cruel film movie reel, fate showing her all the things she would miss out on for the years to come; everything she would give up if severed their bind.

Seulgi first saw herself sitting down at their lunch table for the first time back in high school, recalling how she had broken into a nervous sweat when she locked her gaze on their intertwining strings. She’d never forget how perfectly Joohyun’s uniform had been pressed, how not even a single strand of her long, dark brown hair was out of place. Joohyun looked as perfect and angelic as she did now, standing there in her wedding gown.

Then, in the next moment, Seulgi was watching as Joohyun walked the stage of her high school graduation. She remembers the distinct swell of pride in her chest as she watched the older girl accept her diploma. It made her feel as if she could’ve flown over to Joohyun to a kiss to her cheek. She’d practically jumped into Joohyun’s arms the first chance she got. Had she known Joohyun wasn’t coming home for the summer or the summer after that, maybe she really would’ve plucked up the courage to kiss Joohyun’s cheek instead of just thinking about it.

The next flashback came from one of the hour long FaceTime calls she and Joohyun used to share while the older girl was studying in Seoul. Late night calls matched their schedules well because Joohyun was always awake at odd hours of the night while Seulgi herself had gotten busier. On this particular night, Seulgi recalls the two of them accidentally falling asleep before ending the call, lulled into slumber by the sound of each other’s breathing.

All of it became a haunting mirage that made Seulgi’s lip begin to quiver, yet she did her best to remain strong and shake the memories from her head. Now wasn’t the time to burst out into a fit of tears. Joohyun needed her to be strong, needed her to do this. Internally, she cursed herself for being so weak and sentimental when it came to the older woman.

She had to get the job done, and then all of this would be over. She had to give Joohyun up, once and for all. This is what Joohyun wanted, she told herself, and that is exactly what she would give her. At the dip of Joohyun’s head, Seulgi swallows hard and returns the nod, signaling she understood. As she discreetly lowered the pair of scissors to her own right hand, a lone tear trickled off of her cheek and splashed onto marble floor below her. The words of the pastor became fuddled, as if she had forgotten what language itself sounded like.

From his mouth, there came something that sounded like, ‘Lawfully wedded wife,’ but Seulgi couldn’t be certain. She was too focused on the task of severing her soulmate from herself to pay much attention to anything else. In order to conceal what she was doing from the crowd below, Seulgi discreetly turned her body to the side as she went.

She opened the pair of strikingly crafted shears and slowly began inching them towards her beautifully threaded string. Its golden beads gleamed red in the light of the cathedral’s stain glass windows like hot coals from a roaring fire. She’d miss admiring it, with its unique design, the only thing left tying her to Joohyun. God, she would miss Joohyun. Another tear falls to the ground. She’d miss Joohyun so much.

Already, Seulgi had decided she wouldn’t be actively searching for another soulmate after Joohyun for at least a few years, possibly never again. The thought of finding someone new didn’t sit well with her, especially since she was plagued with the sight of the strings. It wouldn’t feel right to her to have to severe someone from the soulmate for a second time in order to for her to find a new soulmate. Perhaps the author would never settle down. She wasn’t sure of that aspect of her future, not with so many things still clouding her mind.

But none of that mattered now. Almost every single thought flew from her mind as she lowered the twin blades to her thread, her hand shaking ever so slightly. Across the stage, Sooyoung whimpered quietly to herself, watching Seulgi’s every move while anxiously biting her lip. Yeri put a hand over her mouth, covering up the quiet sob that escaped from her parted lips. Neither one of them charged across the stage, but Seulgi knew that every fiber of their being screamed for them to do so, to stop her in her tracks.

But they couldn’t do it here. Not when there was a full house of people watching them from the pews and Joohyun and Seungwan were mere minutes away from being happily married. It was unavoidable. Seulgi’s thread glistened in between the golden blades of the scissors. One false move and all would be lost. Seulgi forced herself to take another deep breath, telling herself that one the count of three, she’d let the blades come together.

Yet just as she tightened her grip on the shears, ready to strike down everything she believed in, there was a gasp from the crowd.

“Wait!”

A voice cut through the air, silencing everything it its wake as it echoed off of the walls and ricocheted into Seulgi’s ears. An uncanny stillness swept through the entire congregation. Grandmas and grandpas who had taken turns fanning themselves halted their movements, aunts and uncles stiffened in their seats, and the children who had been playing rock paper scissors beneath the pew all poked their heads up to see what was going on.

No one so much as breathed as they drank in the scene before them. Joohyun had taken a step forward, holding both of her hands out in front of her, eyes wide with fright. The bouquet of her bridal flowers rolled across the floor, coming to a stop at the toe of Seungwan’s shoes. Seulgi merely looked at her, mouth dropping open in shock. Surprisingly, she hadn’t moved, even at an outburst as loud as that.

“Stop!”

Seungwan turned at last, confused as to why her bride had just interrupted the ceremony with such loud outbursts. The Canadian woman began to reach out for Joohyun but froze in place when she saw the scissors clutched in Seulgi’s grasp. Before she could meet Seungwan’s eye, Joohyun suddenly rushed towards her, drawing all of her attention back to her. “Don’t do it, Seulgi! I take it back!” Her soulmate exclaimed, tearing the scissors from her hand.

There was a breathless moment between them, where the audience and the pastor and the bridesmaids all melted away. Nothing mattered but the two of them, as they stood in their little corner of the stage, sharing each other’s space. It felt like it was just the two of them there, inches apart, face to face, with Joohyun breathing hard as she held the scissors in one hand and gripped Seulgi’s arm with the other.

She was looking at Seulgi with an undecipherable expression, dark eyes flitting over Seulgi’s face, as if seeing her for the first time. Seulgi would’ve given everything up just to know what the older woman was thinking at that moment, now that it was revealed she was Joohyun’s true soulmate. Yet just as quickly as the moment had started, it shattered.

Joohyun tugged Seulgi by the arm, dragging her from the altar and down the aisle of pews without another word. Their shoes pattered loudly on the marble floor, echoing throughout the church as they ran away from Joohyun’s wedding. The sound was like the thundering of a herd of wild animals, desperate to get away from the daunting, unforeseen forces of a predator.

The entire congregation had their eyes on them as the two of them sped off, no one uttering a word. Seulgi chanced a stolen glance over her shoulder as she and Joohyun reached the thick doors of the exit. Seungwan stood there, motionless, at the altar. The pastor had one of his large, pudgy hands on her shoulder as they solemnly witnessed her bride flee the scene.

The Canadian woman let her own bouquet fall from in between her fingers at the same time, but Seulgi didn’t see it fall. She’d turned her attention to the multitude of people staring at them. The faces of the pews are all stricken with a mixture of emotions. There was shock, confusion, and others were completely oblivious to what had happened, too lost in their own personal trains of thought, Seulgi supposed.

At least no one tried to stop them, she thought to herself just before they reached the doors. The two runaways burst out of the cathedral and into a beautiful cloudless afternoon, a warm breeze ruffling through their formal clothing. A couple walking their dog on the sidewalk outside the cathedral spotted them, shouting their congratulatory remarks from across the parking lot until Joohyun waved them away with a breathless smile.

“Kang Seulgi,” Joohyun heaved, the two of them still gasping for air. Her nails dig into the fabric of Seulgi’s suit jacket, keeping her close. The beginning of a bruise was slowly forming from how hard Joohyun held her, but Seulgi knew she deserved it. The older woman must’ve sensed the way Seulgi felt like running away. Her free hand was already jammed into her pocket, toying with her car keys.

Her plan to sprint off to her car to speed away from the scene without looking back to see the madness she’d caused was quickly thwarted by the older woman. She’d sell off a few of her homes and take the next plane out of Seoul, all while speeding towards her house.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Joohyun said, motioning Seulgi to hand over the keys to her car. Weakly, Seulgi dropped her keys into Joohyun’s open palm and she allowed herself to be escorted to the vehicle by Joohyun’s iron clad grip. “You’ve got a _hell_ of a lot of explaining to do, young lady, and I believe I’ve just freed up my entire evening.”

 

 

**

 

“You can start now,” Joohyun said.

Despite everything that had happened, the whirlwind of emotion she must’ve been going through, her voice was still softer than silk. Gentle as a lazy, warm breeze wafting through the air, so different to what Seulgi had been expecting. At the very least, she imagined Joohyun spewing harsh words at her. She’d envisioning a storm of a woman waiting for her in the bedroom of the hotel as she had changed out of her suit in the bathroom.

But Joohyun was anything but angry. The older woman was sitting on the edge of Seulgi’s freshly made hotel bed with an almost blank, indifferent expression worn on her features. Her wedding dress was hanging up in Seulgi’s closet and Joohyun stared at it as she absentmindedly picked at the hem of the black V-neck shirt Seulgi had lent her.

On the giant mattress, Joohyun looked like some sort of lost child. Her slight figure made her seem tiny, sitting there with the pillows propping her up and Seulgi’s flannel pajama pants engulfing her. The sight was beyond endearing, but Seulgi didn’t dwell on that for long. There were more important things at stake that needed her attention – her own fate, for one. While the obvious had been avoided with the wedding cancelled, there were still multiple things hanging in the air between two young women.

Seulgi catches a gleam of the golden scissors on the bedsheets beside Joohyun and swallows hard as she emerged from the bathroom. “Start what?” Seulgi asked, rubbing the back of her neck. Though she knew exactly what Joohyun was talking about, she didn’t feel ready to delve into everything. Timidly, she settled herself in the chair opposite to the bed, skin prickling.

What if Joohyun still wanted her to cut their strings? Why had she dragged her out of the cathedral in the first place? Did that mean…Joohyun had felt something? For her? Her mind overflowed with unanswered questions. To make matters even more awkward, now that everything had been blown out into the open, Seulgi wasn’t sure how to act around Joohyun anymore. There was this heaviness to the air surrounding them, weighing down on top of both of their shoulders. Everything either she or Joohyun did put the other on edge, both of them wary of the other’s actions at all times as the settled into the uneasy silence.

“What you do best,” Joohyun replied, pouring herself her second glass of wine. Seulgi stared at the half empty bottle. The bride had made a pit stop at the liquor store just down the street from the hotel before they arrived. She swung Seulgi’s car smoothly into the parking lot and disappeared into the building, wedding dress trailing behind her. A minute or two later, and the bride had emerged with two bottles of red wine. Seulgi said nothing when Joohyun got back behind the wheel and handed her them off to her to hold.

“Telling a story,” the older woman replied simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Seulgi tensed at the mention of her profession. “ _Our_ story. You know, the one where you didn’t tell me you’ve been my soulmate even though we’ve known each other for nine years.” Joohyun twisted her engagement ring. Once, twice, thrice. Then she stopped and took another long swig from her wine glass.

“Right,” Seulgi murmurs, looking down at her hands. She’d been wringing them together, her knuckles white from clenching them too hard. She attempts to chuckle but it comes out as a faint wheeze. “ _That_ story.” Rather than answering, Joohyun took another calculated sip of her wine, waiting patiently as she reclined against the headboard of the bed.

The author glanced at the row of glasses lined up on the table beside her and sighed. If she was going to do this, might as well have a drink. They both deserved it, Seulgi thought to herself. They’d been through enough today as it was. “Could I have some of that?” she asked, holding one of them out towards the older woman. Joohyun dipped her head in a nod and Seulgi took a few steps forward.

The older woman wordlessly tipped the neck of the bottle downwards, filling Seulgi’s glass to the absolute brim. “Thanks.” Seulgi took a shaky sip of the blood red liquid, feeling the way Joohyun’s eyes were raking over her. Her throat warmed with the liquid as she settled back into her chair. The author didn’t speak again until she’d drained the wine completely.

“Where would you like me to begin?” Seulgi asked, wincing as she set the empty glass down on the table behind her. She could barely stomach looking into the other woman’s eyes. Her heart wrenched against her chest each time she so much as glanced Joohyun’s way. “The beginning,” Joohyun replied quickly, leaning forward.

Seulgi looked at her, then, gazing into her pleading eyes. Her heart leapt in her chest, beating faster and faster until she tore her eyes away.

“Please.”

 

**

 

 

When Seulgi tells the last bit her side of the story, they’ve finished off the last of the first bottle of wine and have already cracked open the second. Joohyun watches in silence as Seulgi pours her third glass of the evening, eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

“It’s like you didn’t even try,” she mumbles underneath her breath, shaking her head left to right. “What?” Seulgi says, wondering if she’d heard correctly. “I said you didn’t even try, Seulgi. Other than the first time, when Seohyun interrupted us. There wasn’t even a second time after that where you tried to explain to me, tried to let me know the truth! I know that I wasn’t really _around_ when I was at college, that I was going out with people and things like that, but not even a _word_ after that?”

Joohyun rubbed at her temples. “If only you’d said something…if only I’d known…so many if’s and years and just… _things_. _Jesus Christ._ The blind faith you had in fate is what’s gotten us here, right now.” For a moment, she paused and shook her head, spilling her long, black locks down her shoulders. She exhaled slowly and stared up at the ceiling, trying to keep her tears from dripping down her face. Seulgi nervously looked on from her seat.

The author felt too drained from the day’s events and the emotionally exhausting toll recounting her story took on her was beginning to show. Even with Joohyun talking to her like this, Seulgi could hardly muster up enough energy to even counter back with a defensive remark. She was slumped over in her arm chair, clinging to her wine glass with white knuckles.

The clock blinked a steady red nine o’clock on the dot. They’d had a long winded conversation, dotted with Joohyun’s frequent questions and interjections, and now everything was out in the open. The first time they met, the day Seulgi had almost confessed, how Seulgi had vowed to confess when Joohyun showed up to the dorms on her first day of college, everything. Her eyes stung, both from fatigue and crying, and she was ready to collapse into bed and lay there for a century or two.

Joohyun, to her surprise, seemed anything but weary. As Seulgi nursed her wine, she watched the older woman fidget. Finally, Joohyun heaved another sigh. “You should’ve just told me,” Joohyun mutters, repeating herself. “None of this would’ve ever happened.”

She threw her hands up in the air, gesturing back and forth between them. “I mean, the _years_ I spent searching for you while you were _right there,_ silently hurting. The heartbreak, the wedding, Seungwan. Oh my _god_ , Seungwan.”

The mention of her fiancé seemed to shock her even further into a frenzy. “All of this _had_ to have been avoidable _somewhere_ along the line.” Joohyun’s voice grew louder, shriller, and her eyes screwed shut as she leapt off of the bed to pace. “God you have no _idea_ what my grandmother’s request meant to me! She practically raised me when my parents divorced!”

“I thought you’d be happy!” Seulgi said, finally snapping. Her voice rose as she continued, and she stood to match Joohyun face to face. “Is this not what you _wanted,_ Joohyun? You practically begged me for this, or don’t you remember?” She jabbed a finger at the older woman. “That one night when you brought me home and we had breakfast and for a _moment_ got the briefest glimpse of what life would be like with you in it – and then you went and asked me to do the one thing I vowed to never do. Meddle with fate, let you choose your own soulmate.”

“I didn’t know it was _you_!” Joohyun flung back, voice matching the same volume as Seulgi’s. “Why does it even matter that it was _me_?” Seulgi cried. “You seemed dead set on marrying Seungwan, even when you didn’t know if the two of you were soulmates! How was I supposed to know you were having second thoughts? You’re two of my closest friends, you’d been going steady for _years,_ and it didn’t seem your relationship was wavering to me!”

There was a white hot anger building within Seulgi’s chest, threatening to overflow after years of bottling up her feelings. “Was I supposed to have just chimed that little fact in one day? Maybe during one of our get-togethers? ‘Oh, Joohyun-ah, by the way, I forgot to mention, _I’m_ your actual soulmate.’ You and Seungwan had been going steady for _years_ when I’d predicted you’d only be together for a few _months_!”

“That’s why I never said anything. You seemed so happy, how could I mess that up? How could I split the two of you apart when you’d already given up on finding me in the first place? And even if I had done that, would you have even believed me? If you weren’t sure of yourself, then what did ‘I’ve never been surer in my life’ mean, then?” Seulgi asked, her voice falling as she watched Joohyun’s expression crumble.

The older woman collapsed into the arm chair while Seulgi still stood, chest heaving from her long winded speech. “I was happy,” the older woman confessed at last in a softer voice, shaking her head. She looked older then, Seulgi realized. Less of a vibrant youthful beauty and more her age. A matured, refined woman who had seen and felt her fair share of pain. “With Seungwan, I mean. For a while. A long time. I guess. I don’t really know how to explain it all.”

She sighed then, looking down at her lap with a perplexed frown, trying to find the right words. Seulgi waited patiently, sitting on the edge of her bed. “There’s always a limit, you know? I’d been looking for my soulmate…for _you_ …for years. It seemed like an endless, fruitless search. I must have an infinite amount of dates I’ve been on, Seulgi. I thought my soulmate must’ve abandoned me or that I might never find them.”

“When Seungwan showed up I guess I just sort of…stopped looking. I grabbed ahold of what I thought was the best I could do because I thought I wouldn’t be able to find anything else. For years, I thought Seungwan was my soulmate. Settling down with her was another question. When she proposed, I couldn’t help but get this nagging feeling at the back of my mind, like what her and I had was _something_ but it wasn’t _it_. It wasn’t right.”

“Until it was me?” Seulgi couldn’t help but ask, interjecting her way into Joohyun’s thoughts. Joohyun looked at her, then through her, till her gaze hit home and sent a shiver through Seulgi’s spine. It was like Joohyun was seeing her for the first time, in this new light, as her true soulmate. She wondered if Joohyun had ever felt something towards her, had ever felt the tug of the strings.

“Until it was you,” Joohyun replied. “Yes.” The older woman bit her lip as she stared at her. With the amount of concentration dwelling deep within her eyes, Seulgi felt like she was trying to commit her face to memory, like she was afraid of forgetting it. “You know…in high school, there was something about you that made me question everything I’d ever known. I’d already had a boyfriend or two by then, but none of them ever had the same _pull_ as you did.”

Seulgi felt her heart skip a beat at the knowledge that Joohyun had in fact felt their connection from the very beginning. Joohyun wiped her nose with her shirt sleeve and continued. “You turned my whole world upside down, Seulgi. I’d never even looked twice at a girl before, but you sparked something in me. For a little while, I thought I could block it all out with a new boy, a new face, someone who could almost match the same way you made me feel. I thought maybe it was a fluke, that it would go away in time.”

A tear ran down Joohyun’s face as Seulgi watched her reveal her side of the story. “But it never worked, which is why I ended up going out with more than a few people back then. Then I graduated and we weren’t in contact as often as before. I stayed away for a long time, working and doing internships, the usual sucky adult college stuff. Though we called each other, it wasn’t the same. I thought then that I’d lost whatever crush I’d felt on you, that maybe we weren’t really anything at all and that you were just the wake up call I needed to realize I was gay.”

“That’s why I didn’t think twice when it came to Seungwan. She gave me the same feeling you did when we were together and you hadn’t come around campus yet when I ran into her one day. And so when you came for move in day, I was already so caught up with her and my own courses and focusing on graduation that I didn’t even think about what I was really feeling because I was happy with her for so long.”

She gave Seulgi an apologetic look. It must’ve been apparent the way her face had scrunched up with surprise at Joohyun’s confession, so Seulgi attempted to smooth out her features. “Then I graduated a few years after. I was doing my best to gain as much experience as I could in my field, juggling a social life, spending time with Seungwan. It was difficult for any of us to really meet up anymore, remember?”

Seulgi nodded. How could she forget? While it was true their small friend group went to the same college, that didn’t necessarily mean all of them were attached to the hip. It was difficult to align schedules with each other what with classes and part time jobs, let alone find time to meet each other for more than thirty minutes at a time.

“We were all in our own little worlds, working and studying and living. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t completely happy with Seungwan until I realized why I kept staying late at work all the time,” Joohyun sighed. “That’s when I got this idea in my head that maybe Seungwan wasn’t the one after all…and you know the rest, I’m sure.”

The room fell silent again as both of their minds reeled with newfound information. Seulgi couldn’t believe that she’d been the reason Joohyun realized what her true sexuality was while Joohyun was still digesting all of the events Seulgi endured. In a way, it seemed like if only Joohyun had stayed, if she’d returned home once in a while from college, this could’ve been avoided as well. More if’s and but’s, Seulgi thought unhappily to herself.

“I’ve got to go,” Joohyun sighed, finally checking the time. “It’s late and there’s still some things I’ve got to sort out.” Seulgi tensed, mind drifting back to the image of Seungwan standing there by the altar, alone with the pastor’s hand on her shoulder, as she and Joohyun ran. Seulgi wondered how Joohyun would face Seungwan, her family, and the endless stream of questions that no doubt all of them had.

Would she reject Seungwan? Were they going to break up? What did this mean for her and Seulgi? Seulgi supposed that only time would tell, when Joohyun was ready to talk again. The older woman stood from the chair and paced the room, trying to find something to say, to close the night out once and for all. “I’ve got a lot to think about, Seul,” she finally said, rubbing at her temples again. She made her way over to the closet and stared for a moment at her wedding dress. Her shoulders sagged as she ran her fingers over the fine fabric.

“About all this and what to do. _Us_ and Seungwan and the future.” She made her way to the door with the dress slung over her shoulder and Seulgi just sat there, defeated, wine glass in hand, nodding in agreement. No doubt, the both of them had some thinking to do, Seulgi was still reeling from Joohyun’s side of the story.

The older woman placed her hand on the door knob and seemed ready to leave but hesitated one last time. Joohyun paused and looked over her shoulder, meeting Seulgi’s unwavering gaze. She gave her one last burning, lingering look, eyes searching for something in Seulgi’s expression.

“I’ll see you around, Kang Seulgi-yah,” Joohyun murmured, her voice catching in her throat. It sounded more like a goodbye than anything, but Seulgi managed to quirk her lips up in a half smile in response. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, the only thing that would come out would be, “ _I love you_.” There was a whisper of a smile tugging at Joohyun’s lips, like she couldn’t manage anything more. And then she was gone, whirling from the room like a wisp of smoke dancing away from a dying flame.

For a moment, Seulgi imagined herself getting up from the chair and rushing towards the door. She’d burst out into the long corridor and sprint after Joohyun and…Seulgi cursed and held her head in her hands. Joohyun didn’t need her to act on a spur of the moment instinct in order to know what the future held for the two of them.

If Seulgi ran after Joohyun now, she might scare the older woman away for good, making things much worse. No, it was better like this, Seulgi told herself. No matter how much her heart yearned for Joohyun, Seulgi would to her best to maintain distance. They needed space this time around. Time apart would do them good after such emotionally draining events.

Heaving a sigh, Seulgi stood from the bed and made her way over to the bottle of wine. When she’d corked it well enough, she placed it in the hotel fridge and ran a hand over her face. She felt like she’d aged a hundred years since the wedding that happened that morning, before Joohyun had stopped her and everything had become a jumbled, tangled mess like the jumble of red strings clouding Seulgi’s vision.

No longer did she hold the power of her and Joohyun’s fate. It was Joohyun’s turn now to choose. Her or Seungwan. There was nothing Seulgi could’ve done but offer her side of their story and hope that it helped Joohyun make her decision. Seulgi pulled her shirt up and tossed it onto the floor, then shrugged off her jeans and kicked them towards her suitcase. Tomorrow, she’d check out of the hotel at eleven o’clock and make her way back to her home in Seoul.

It would be a new day and Joohyun knew everything and for once, fate wasn’t settled on Seulgi’s shoulders. She changed into her pajamas and washed up and she reached for her phone for the first time since she’d slipped it into her suit jacket before the wedding. There were too many panic stricken messages from Sooyoung and Yeri to even begin to count, but when Seulgi reached the end of the notifications, she felt her heart clench.

There was a single text from Seungwan, short and sweet, yet effective beyond belief.

_I know it’s you, Seul._

Seulgi stared at the lit screen, reading the message until it was seared into the insides of her eyelids. Quickly, she typed out a response and sent it without thinking. _I’m sorry._ The author dared not respond to any other text, feeling especially jittery after Seungwan’s. There were multiple things that the Canadian woman could’ve meant by her message, but undoubtedly all of them were connected to one similar fact.

Seulgi was Joohyun’s soulmate. Joohyun _had_ felt something for her when they were in high school. Joohyun had run out of the church, dragging Seulgi behind her, and they had ruined Seungwan’s wedding day. The author screwed her eyes shut and pinched at the bridge of her nose. It still hurt trying to process everything that happened that day, the events flashing through her mind at what seemed to be warp speed.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, Seulgi told herself, attempting to soothe the burning sensation of guilt radiating in her gut. If Joohyun hadn’t stopped her…a tear fell from her eyes and Seulgi rubbed it away with the palm of her hand. Feeling far too tired and tipsy to do anything but crawl into bed and fall asleep, Seulgi plugged in her phone and positively collapsed onto the mattress.

Within seconds, she was out cold, plunging herself into a deep slumber. That night, she had one dream. In it, Seulgi actually decided to chase after Joohyun once she left, sprinting after her until she caught her arm with her hand.

But when Seulgi turned the woman around, her face began to fade out of focus. Joohyun’s figure was evaporating into thin air, slipping through her fingers like water and spilling out onto the carpet of the corridor in a puff of black dust.

 

 

**

 

 

More than half a year had passed since she and Joohyun had run out of Saint Anthony’s Cathedral. Seven months of silent hoping and pining and isolation, of writing and failing to feel satisfied with anything she typed out on the page, of this unsettled feeling fluttering within her chest. She hadn’t talked to either Sooyoung or Yeri for the same amount of time, not knowing exactly how to start up a conversation.

How do you go from talking and keeping in touch once every week or so to just stopping cold turkey? _Break up a wedding with two of your other best friends and run away with their fiancé,_ Seulgi thinks to herself. _That’ll do it._ She’s pacing in the living room of her house in Seoul, debating whether or not she should contact Yeri and Sooyoung.

The author had been finishing up one of the last books from the horror series she’d put out before the whole wedding ordeal but found she kept getting distracted and frustrated with herself. Nothing seemed quite right with her work now. It was like she couldn’t pick up where she’d left off last, couldn’t connect what she’d written before the wedding with what she was _after_ the fact. She did her best with her work but it didn’t feel quite right anymore.

Even with critics and reviews raving about her work, there was a disconnect for her. It was like she lost her spark, her muse. Finally, Seulgi walked back over to where she’d been sitting, hunched over on her sofa, and shut her laptop. Heaving a heavy sigh, Seulgi shook her head. She couldn’t work like this. Although she only had a thing or two to finish up within the story she was working on before sending it to her editor for revising, Seulgi couldn’t seem to concentrate any longer.

She swiped her phone up off the couch and stared hard at it. Taking in the abundance of notifications from her manager, articles from media outlets, reports on her sales from her publishing company, she grimaced. There were no calls, no texts from anyone close to her. It’d been a somewhat lonely existence, but one she felt she rightfully deserved. Sometimes, the only person she talked to on a regular basis was her manager.

Now, she felt ready to talk about what had happened between her and Joohyun. She yearned to speak on the topic, to gain insight from the other two young women who she was close with. Perhaps Sooyoung and Yeri had news about Seungwan or could tell her where Joohyun was, if she’d even resurfaced. She knew she wasn’t ready to speak with Seungwan yet, but she was curious as to how the woman was doing.

Although she and the Canadian woman weren’t necessarily on speaking terms, the author was concerned about her. They’d been best friends when all of this had gone down, almost closer than she was to Yeri and Sooyoung. Plus, there was always the possibility that Joohyun had simply went home that night and made up with Seungwan, that she simply just wasn’t returning any of her calls.

The older woman could’ve easily decided to try and make things work with Seungwan still, if Seungwan didn’t mind them not being actual soulmates. From the look in her eyes when Seulgi looked back, she knew Seungwan must’ve put two and two together and had a rough idea of what Seulgi had been about to do with the golden scissors.

Seulgi bit her lip, hesitated for a second, then made the call. She pressed the phone to her ear and felt her hands begin to clam up. Never before had she felt this nervous when it came to her best friends. Luckily, Seulgi didn’t have to wait long. Yeri picked up before the first ring had even finished going off.

“Took you long enough,” was the first thing the young CEO chimed into the receiver. Seulgi’s lips quirked involuntarily into a smile at the record label owner’s voice, shaking her head. Yeri hadn’t changed a bit. “What’s up, Kang?” She let out a small chuckle before getting down to the point. “Are you and Sooyoung doing anything tonight?” Seulgi asked timidly. In the background, she heard Yeri shuffling through some papers.

Checking the time, the author realized that Yeri must still be at work, sitting up in her office and sorting through whatever it was CEO of expansive record companies did. It was two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, the middle of the work week. But before she could retract her offer, Yeri piped up again. “How does Han River Park, say…around 4:30 sound?”

“Perfect,” Seulgi breathes, relief flooding her voice. She can almost see Yeri smirking on the other end of the line. “Alright, we’ll see you soon…and Seulgi-yah?” Seulgi had nearly ended the phone call by then, and scrambled to press the device back against her ear.

“Yes?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Don’t be late.”

She could hear a hint of a smile from the younger woman’s voice, causing her to chuckle again. “Alright. I won’t keep you waiting. I’ll see you there, Yeri-ah.” As soon as Yeri hung up the phone, the author sprang into action. It wouldn’t be too long of a trip to Han River Park from her home, but Seulgi felt more than underdressed for the occasion.

Flicking on the light in her bathroom, she glanced at her reflection with a look of disdain. She was still wearing her pajamas from the night before and she had a couple cowlicks sticking up from the back of her head. “Christ,” Seulgi breathed out, grabbing her hairbrush to work out the knots in her hair. Eventually, she gave up and let her hair have its way, letting it fall down in unkempt wavy locks.

Turning her attention to her closet, Seulgi began to search for something to wear from the multitude of racks surrounding her. November was chilly this time of year, but Seulgi’s extensive coat collection would take care of that. As she thumbed through her blazers and dress shirts, Seulgi caught herself and stopped.

“Yeri and Sooyoung are my _friends_. I shouldn’t be dressing up like I’m going to an interview or a meeting with my manager. Jesus.” She dropped the wool blazer in her hands and turned her attention elsewhere, shaking her head. When she emerged from her closet, half an hour had passed. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror with a look of approval.

 _This_ was more her style. She’d stand out less like this, she thought to herself. In her all black attire and her faux fur Sherpa jacket, she figured she’d blend in more with the crowd. Besides, it wasn’t really her who would be the center of attention once the three of them met up.

It’d be Yeri, the face of her own company, who would steal the attention away. She was the face of her company, and Seulgi remembers how she used to complain about the paparazzi even before the wedding. Satisfied that she looked decent, Seulgi grabbed her purse and made her way out the front door.

Once she climbed behind the wheel of her car, a sleek yet practical vehicle decked out with tinted windows, she took a deep breath. Her fingers drummed against the wheel of the car as she sat idle in her garage. In her head, she could hardly believe that she was actually doing this. She was taking the first steps of getting back in touch with her friends again.

For a split second, a wave of nauseating nervousness came over her, and with it, a tide of second thoughts. What if Yeri and Sooyoung stood _her_ up? What if they didn’t want to see her or be her friend anymore? She gripped at the wheel tighter, clenching her jaw.

With one hand, she gripped at her keys and turned them in the ignition. Instantly, the car entire roared to life. Now wasn’t the time to back down from her fears, she told herself, and backed out of her driveway.

 

**

 

“I fucked up bad.”

Seulgi slumped over onto Sooyoung’s shoulder after the three of them finished filling each other in on everything they’d missed from each other’s lives since the wedding. Tears were streaking down Seulgi cheeks. She was beyond tired of wallowing in her own sorrow, drying her tears and blowing her nose, but there was nothing else to do.

Joohyun was gone. It was like she’d vanished off the face of the earth without a trace. No one knew where she was, not Seungwan, not her parents, not Sooyoung or Yeri. Whenever anyone tried to call or text her, nothing went through. Yeri theorized that she must’ve blocked all of her contacts one by one.

Sooyoung scoffed and shook her head, reasoning that disconnecting her number was a more plausible thing for Joohyun to have done. Regardless, no one could reach her. Not even her social media accounts were running anymore. Seulgi felt like she was lost, shipwrecked and floating in the middle of a sea of sorrow with no sight of land for miles around.

It must’ve been her fault that Joohyun disappeared in the first place. After she left Seulgi’s hotel room, Joohyun must’ve plotted something out during the cab ride to wherever she’d been heading. Her last words _had_ sounded a little bit like a goodbye, the more Seulgi thought about it. _I’ll see you around, Kang Seulgi-yah._ Joohyun’s voice sounded deflated, like something in her had been filled to the brim like a balloon and Seulgi came along and popped it.

Seulgi figured that Joohyun probably went back to her and Seungwan’s place to pack up a suitcase or two before heading to wherever she’d gone. Maybe she’d booked a plane ticket from her phone during the cab ride. Maybe she dropped her phone in a puddle somewhere and had to get a new one and that’s why her number wasn’t working. _Maybe, maybe, maybe._

Too many possibilities and not enough concrete answers. The three of them were hitting dead end after dead end, leading them nowhere closer to Joohyun than when they first began brainstorming. “Yeah,” Sooyoung hummed, her voice far away as they stared out at the Han River. The sun blinked down at them from a range of puffy white clouds, staining the earth with plum and orange hues.

A gaggle of students walked by behind them with their uniform blazers clutched tightly around them, laughing and joking loudly with each other in the cool autumn air. Behind them, there came a flock of tourists, gazing around with wide eyes as they snapped photographs of each other posing with the autumn leaves. Sooyoung turned her head, peering after them for a moment. “You really did it this time, Seul,” she said absentmindedly.

It was then that Yeri returned to their little outcropping with an armful of booze and tubs of ice cream. “A feast fit for the queens we are,” the CEO announced cheekily, dropping down onto the bench beside Sooyoung. She doled out spoons, beer bottles, napkins, and ice cream to each of them. “Bone appétit, ladies,” she announced before digging into her tub heartily.

Seulgi daubed her eye with the corner of her sleeve before sitting up. Her small tub of triple chocolate-chip swirl was ice cold against her skin. With the sun beginning to set, the temperate twenty-two degree weather had begun to descend a little bit, causing each of them to tug their coats a little tighter around them.

Amongst the three of them, hardly anyone spoke after that. The young women all munched on their ice cream, took swigs of their beer bottles, and enjoyed the peaceful silence of the evening sunset. It was beautiful outside, with the leaves ablaze with the vibrant colors of golden yellow, earthy brown, and fiery reds.

For the first time in what felt like centuries, Seulgi began to feel content with herself. There was still an ache in her chest, but it felt like hardly anything compared to the weight she’d carried around for the past nine years. Here, she was surrounded by two of her closest friends, who still loved and supported her.

“It kind of feels like we’re in college all over again,” Seulgi murmured, loud enough for Yeri and Sooyoung to hum in agreement. Whenever they found the time, their little friend group would take the bus down to the Han River, swiping their T-money cards and clambering on board the crowded vehicle and making their way through the throngs of people on the street towards the riverside.

“Remember that one time we thought we lost Yeri on one of the bus stop exchanges?” Sooyoung piped up, stifling a laugh with a spoonful of her ice cream. She nudges her shoulder against Seulgi’s to elicit a response from the older woman. “Oh my god, that’s right!” The author exclaims, recalling the event with a snort. “The first time the three of us went to the Han River together! It was Yeri’s first time heading to the Han River from campus and we couldn’t find her right before our next connection so we all started panicking.”

Yeri scoffs, tipping back a sip of beer before wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “That’s because I was standing right _behind_ you guys. Stop pretending you’re both giants. I’m not that short, you both just weren’t _looking_ hard enough!” The three of them burst out into a fitful of giggles while Yeri pretends to assault her fiancé with a flurry of punches.

“Need I remind you that also the time you almost fell into the water, Yerim?” Seulgi adds, lifting her head off of Sooyoung’s shoulder to shoot a pointed look at the younger woman. “Hey!” The blond woman yelped, jabbing her spoon accusatorily at the author. Chunks of chocolate and coffee bean splattered across the sidewalk. “That’s not fair _you’re_ the one who tried to push me in the first place!”

The three young women cackled together and then fell silent, each of them reminiscing in the moment. “It’ll be alright, you know,” Sooyoung said finally, nudging Seulgi again. “Everything’s going to sort itself out. How long could Joohyun go without talking to a single one of us? I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually. It’s only been a few months, right?”

“It’s almost been a year, Sooyoung…,” Seulgi trailed off, shaking her head before she could complete that thought. “But I’m sure you’re right. It could be any day now, right?” Sooyoung and Yeri flashed her hopeful smiles, yet each of their minds were going over the possibilities. There was always the chance that perhaps Joohyun had simply moved on entirely.

No one knew what the older woman had been thinking the night she disappeared, slipping away from Seulgi’s hotel room and out into the night. Had she wanted to turn over a completely new leaf? Give herself a fresh start in a place where no one knew her name or recognized her face? What was she doing right now, while the three of them watched the sunset and thought of her as they searched amongst the clouds for any trace of her face?

She could be anywhere, doing anything, all three of them knew that. Hardly any of Joohyun’s roots were left in Seoul, save for the flowers of friendship she had grown between the three of them, the love she had held with Seungwan, the diploma bearing her name as a graduate of Seoul National University.

She’d uprooted most of them when she left, but the seeds of friendship still remained, allowing the ghost of her to follow them everywhere they went. “I just can’t stop thinking about her,” Seulgi confessed quietly. Her spirit was beginning to dim, just like the sun’s rays as the golden glowing orb slipped down past the horizon and disappeared from view.

“Believe me, we’re _all_ thinking about her, too,” Yeri reassured her, ruffling her hair. “Joohyun’s always kind of been a mystery, but I think that ultimately, when she’s ready, she’ll return to us. We just have to be patient with her.” Seulgi nods again, focusing back on her ice cream. They settle back into a comfortable silence, munching on their snacks and tipping back their beer bottles in silence.

The waves of the river laps against the shore, rippling with a mesmerizingly quiet tranquility. Seulgi’s mind clears further as time passes, enjoying the fact that she’s reconciling with Yeri and Sooyoung. “I should’ve reached out sooner,” she breathes out, shaking her head. “I feel like such an idiot…what I was so afraid of?” Sooyoung throws an arm around her, hand squeezing at her shoulder, frowning with concern. “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it too much, Seul.” She gave Seulgi a small smile.

“We knew you needed your space after all that had happened,” Yeri piped up, finishing Sooyoung’s sentence. She reached over Sooyoung to clap a hand on the author’s knee, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips. “Mind you, we _were_ curious as to what happened between you and Joohyun. You should’ve seen the cathedral after you two booked it out of there, everyone just stood still for like…five minutes straight, just wondering what we should do.”

Seulgi grimaced as she recalled that fateful day. “I looked back over my shoulder right before we burst out of the front doors,” she mumbled. “Seungwan was staring at us with this… _look_. I don’t even know how to describe it. It didn’t seem like she was upset or surprised…I couldn’t say.” Sooyoung and Yeri remained mum, giving Seulgi to collect her thoughts. There had been one topic that they hadn’t quite breached yet, one Seulgi couldn’t bear to leave alone until she knew the answer.

“So…have you guys talked with Seungwan?” Seulgi asks, biting her lip. She kicked at the ground with her shoe, spraying pebbles into the water below. “Since the wedding?” Yeri asks. Seulgi nods, not trusting her voice. Her throat had tightened with the image of Seungwan at the altar, waiting there and watching them with her sad eyes. “We’ve met up once or twice,” Yeri says cautiously, glancing at Sooyoung.

Seulgi catches on quickly, understanding that Seungwan must still be somewhat off limits for them to talk about still. But her curiosity gets to her, and she finds herself asking one last question about the Canadian woman. “How is she?” As soon as she hears herself ask it, Seulgi grimaces and fiddles with her beer bottle. If Seulgi had been in her shoes…watching the love of her life dragging her best friend out of their wedding…Seulgi couldn’t even bear to imagine it.

“She’s…,” Yeri trails off, looking at Sooyoung for guidance. “Doing alright,” Sooyoung jumps in, taking Yeri’s cue. There’s a tension in the air as the nurse practitioner speaks. “We saw her last a couple months ago, met up for coffee at this new café. It was nice, we talked for a little bit before she had to go.” Yeri gets up to throw away their empty ice cream tubs.

“What _were_ you two planning to do at the wedding, anyways?” Seulgi asked when she returned to sit beside them again, trying to lighten up the mood. “I figured that you’d be up to _something_.” Yeri smiles wickedly at her. “Oh, nothing, unnie. I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” the younger woman says slyly, shooting her a wink. “You wanted me to tackle her off of the stage, Yerim,” Sooyoung deadpans, giving Yeri an exasperated look.

“That’s not true!”

“It is _too_! I could’ve been potentially impaled by her scissors yet you kept _insisting_!”

Yeri’s eyebrows flick up her forehead. “I recall no such occurrence.”

Seulgi stares at the two of them, shaking her head. “You guys…haven’t changed a bit.”

Their attention turns back to her. “Well, what about you, then?” Sooyoung asks. “Have _you_ changed since Joohyun left?”

For a while, Seulgi was silent.

“Yeah. I think I have.”

“Don’t worry, Seulgi. Fate with find a way.” Yeri freezes the moment she says it, knowing that she’s just ventured into territory that she shouldn’t have. Within seconds, she’s reeling it all back, shaking her head and apologizing profusely. The irony in her words aren’t lost on them, and they fall silent again.

“It’s alright,” Seulgi mumbles. “If anything, I deserve it. Anyways, it’s getting kind of late...I’ve still got that book to finish.” Yeri and Sooyoung share a glance but if either of them were hoping to convince Seulgi to stay, they kept it to themselves.

Not that Seulgi would’ve budged, anyways. “Just roll with the punches, Seul,” Sooyoung advises as the three of them move to leave, walking back towards the entrance of the park. “That’s how we’ve all had to go through life. Just…make sure you keep in touch with us this time, yeah?” She grips onto Seulgi’s shoulder as if she were reassuring herself that she was actually there, and the three of them pause as they reach the end of the walkway.

“For a second, Yeri and I thought you’d fallen off the grid just like Joohyun-unnie had.” She gives Seulgi another bone crushing hug and then backs off, giving Yeri the chance to embrace the older woman. “I make sure to keep in touch this time around,” Seulgi promises as she squeezes Yeri’s shoulders. Yeri breaks away with a smile and intertwines her fingers with Sooyoung, leading her off in the opposite direction from where Seulgi had parked.

Seulgi watched them go, a smile dancing across her face. They were so happy together, so in love. That’s when Seulgi remembers. “Hey!” She shouts, jumping up and down as she waves her arms furiously in the air. Yeri and Sooyoung turn around, laughing at her as Seulgi walks back over to them. “When’s the wedding, you guys? That’s coming up soon, right?”

She watches the couple share a look, and for a second, Seulgi feels dread spreading throughout her body, a chill deeper than the breeze cutting through her skin. Had she missed it? Had Yeri and Sooyoung gotten married within the seven months she’d last seen them? Sooyoung breaks out in to a wild grin, squeezing Yeri’s hand a little harder.

“We actually didn’t want a super extravagant wedding,” she says, dangling her left hand in the air. Her ring glitters in the lamplight of the park, nearly blinding Seulgi. “We got married at a courthouse! With Yeri and I’s parents present. Nobody else but you and our parents know!” Yeri groans and rolls her eyes, smacking herself in the face with her free hand.

“And we _were_ planning on _keeping_ it as secret as we can, but if you keep broadcasting this to all of Seoul, it might not stay like that for much longer!” Ignoring her, Sooyoung continues to speak. “We figured that this was the best ceremony for us, with Yeri being so busy overseas and helping debut her latest group, and me with work at the hospital. We didn’t send out any invitations, you didn’t miss it, Seulgi-yah.”

Seulgi releases the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Oh my fucking god, no way! Congratulations, you guys!” she exclaims, barely able to contain her excitement. Unable to hold herself back, she wrestles the couple into a giant bear hug.

“Next time we get together, we should celebrate! It’ll be on me! Whatever you guys want to do, just let me know!” The two newly weds giggle and give Seulgi radiant smiles as the author lets go of them and slowly backs away towards where she’d parked her car. The author jangles her car keys in the air as she takes her leave. “That’d be nice, Seulgi-yah!” Yeri calls after her, laughing at the author’s antics.

“Call me! We’ll work something out!” Seulgi yells over her shoulder, grinning ear to ear, before turning on her heel and making her way towards her vehicle. During the entire drive home, a smile held her face captive. It was reassuring for her to know that fate did in fact work its magic every once in a while, that two out of four of her best friends were happy. She felt more like herself when she stepped back into her house, rejuvenated by meeting Yeri and Sooyoung.

She spotted her laptop still sitting on the couch, and as she threw off her coat, she finally felt a surge of inspiration. In an instant, her fingers were flying across the keyboard at an almost inhumane pace, trying desperately to get everything in her head down while she had time. By midnight, she sent off the document to her editor, complete in its entirety. Her eyelids heavy, Seulgi got ready for bed with a triumphant feeling spreading throughout her body.

Not only had she reconnected with Yeri and Sooyoung, but she had gotten her some of her spark back. Within the seven months she’d spent mainly holed up in her house, writing, this had to be the best day she’s ever had. She flopped into bed and willed Yeri to call her up soon, finally surrendering to the exhaustion of writing for three hours straight.

 

 

**

 

_Three years later._

 

Seulgi picked at the sleeve of her cashmere sweater behind the stage set. Beside her, a staff member listened intently to the words of the host as they addressed the live audience, one hand pressed to his headphones. Internally, the author repeated her instructions one by one as she waited patiently for the interview to begin. Avoiding any mishaps was her number one priority, she didn’t want to stutter any of her lines or come off as unlikeable to the audience.

As soon as the staff member cued her, she would confidently walk into the live show room, give a polite bow to the audience, then make her way towards the seat beside the host. All around her, a gaggle of staff workers rushed from place to place, ensuring that everything ran smoothly for the broadcast.

“Is all of this bustle for me?” Seulgi joked, attempting to both breath the ice and to ease her nerves. To her relief, the staff worker cracked a smile. “If you think _this_ is busy, imagine what the studio looked like when we merely _heard_ you were coming for an interview,” he replied with a laugh before returning to listening to the host. Blushing, Seulgi turned her attention to one of the television screens broadcasting the live feed from the studio.

“This morning, I have the honor of being here in the studio with one of the best-selling novelists in our country,” the host, Kim Jongin, was saying. “You may recognize her from a plethora of titles such as _All Are Welcome_ , _Change is For the Better_ , and _Something in the Shadows._ Are of these books are smash hits with audiences worldwide. But her latest work, _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ is sure to capture both your attention and your hearts.”

At that moment, the staff worker dipped his head in a nod, and Seulgi readied herself to strut on stage. She took a deep breath in, and hoped that her hair looked alright. “Everybody, please welcome one of the current best-selling authors of all of the nation, Kang Seulgi!”

The interviewer turned to Seulgi with a wide, bleach white grin as she made her way down the hallway and burst out onto the well-lit set. For a moment, the author was momentarily blinded by the set lights, blinking away at the sunspots dotting her vision.

She remembered to pause before the tiny stairwell leading up to the elevated stage where the host was waiting for her, and bowed deeply to the audience as she soaked up the heavy thundering of applause for her. The author flashed a charming grin everyone’s way as she turned to make her way to her seat once more.

“Seulgi-ssi, how are you on this fine day?” The host said in his chipper tone, smiling handsomely at her as she sank into her arm chair. Seulgi returned his grin easily. She’d met Jongin before, they’d had a few interviews over the course of her career and he was a familiar face amongst a crowd of strangers. She felt comfortable being herself with him, even in front of the slew of cameras and eyes trained on them, than with other interviewers.

“I’m doing alright, how are you?” She replied smoothly, crossing her legs. “Well, if I _must_ say, I’m much better now that you’re here,” Jongin winked. Seulgi rolled her eyes as she laughed playfully at him while the audience oo’d and ahh’d. “Don’t you have some questions for me to ask, Jongin-ssi?” She asked with a pointed look, quirking her eyebrow at him.

“Right, right, the questions!” Jongin replied with an easy laugh, reaching for a small stack of cue cards on the coffee table in front of them. He turned his attention to the audience as he flashed one of the cards out to them. “We’ve taken a handful of questions from our audience beforehand for you to answer about your latest story, _Cut by the Crimson Cord,_ Seulgi-ssi. Please answer them as you see fit.”

Seulgi dipped her head in a nod, signaling Jongin to announce what the first card said. “After writing for the horror genre for so long, why did you make the sudden shift to lighter stories with themes of romance and comedy?” Jongin read off, looking expectantly over at Seulgi. The author put on a thoughtful expression, mulling over the meaning of the question.

“I guess I thought it was time for a change of pace,” she said, causing an eruption of laughter from the audience. She mustered up a chuckle herself as she waited for the noise to die down. “There’s only so much gore you can take, right?” Seulgi joked again. Jongin nodded encouragingly, smiling his brilliant smile at her.

“Well, truthfully, I wanted to see if I _could_ write in another genre,” the author explained, spreading her hands out. “I was out with some of my friends one night and they were talking up the idea of broadening our horizons. You know, traveling to a foreign country, learning a different language, things like that. But my mind kind of wandered off on its own and I thought to myself, well, what if I tried to write something new?”

“Something that didn’t involve axe murderers or murder mysteries?” Jongin interjected, cracking a joke of his own. “Yes! Exactly!” Seulgi said, the audience cracking up around them. “So then I thought, well what’s the complete opposite of horror?” Her smile became a shade paler. “Romance, of course. There’s nothing better than a lighthearted, meaningful romance story to build you back up after a horror novel’s torn you down, right?”

Jongin nodded his head in understanding. “I couldn’t agree more. You seem to be doing a wonderful job with this genre, Seulgi-ssi. I’m sure all of us in this room today can agree that your hard work with this new challenge has paid off.” Seulgi dipped her head in a slight nod, blushing when the audience fired off another round of applause in her honor.

“The next question is…how do you know so much about the lore of the strings of fate?” Jongin set the card face down on the table and reshuffled the deck in his hands as Seulgi pondered how to respond. “You’ve heard of the _Atropos_ , I’m sure?” She finally said, feeling a prickle of sweat beginning to bloom across her skin.

She decided she wouldn’t reveal the fact that she herself was in possession of the sight, that would be too much, but she’d allow a little bit of personal information to leak out instead. It would be a good distraction from the lack of research she actually had to do for her latest story. No one would question her knowledge if she had a relative who was a member of the _Atropos._ They’d assume that the traditions would be passed down from generation to generation, that perhaps her grandmother had even taught her a little of the lore herself.

Jongin nodded his head, tapping at his chin thoughtfully. Seulgi admired the way he could express himself in such a simple yet effective manner, he drew his audience in with the flick of an eyebrow. “They were a network of people who held the power of the sight of the fated red strings, right? At a costly fee, you could get them to tie your string to anyone you wished,” Jongin replied. “This was back when the sight was prevalent in our society and most people could see the strings themselves.”

Seulgi nodded, face grave. “I believe my grandmother was once a member of this organization. I found a pair of golden shears, just like the ones the _Atropos_ were rumored to have used during their ceremonies of cutting and rebinding people’s threads, once while sorting through my storage unit.” Jongin leaned forward in his seat, completely enthralled at this new found information. Never before had this been revealed, and Seulgi was almost certain that when by the time she returned home, the information would be making headlines.

“You don’t say!” He exclaimed, eyes wide, prompting her to continue her story. “Well, let’s just say that she kept a few journals around,” the author said with a wink, vaguely waving her hand in the air. Laughing, Jongin quickly took the cue and moved on to the next question. “Could you give us a quick summary of _Cut by the Crimson Cord_?” He placed the card on the coffee table and took a small sip of his glass of water.

“This story…is much different than the others I’ve written over the course of my career,” Seulgi started off slowly. “Chae Rowoon is a descendant of one of the last families who hold the power of the sight of the red strings of fate. Her best friend, Song Chung-Cha, is completely smitten by the idea of finding the end of her own string, even if she cannot see it herself.”

Jongin waves a hard cover copy of Seulgi’s book at the camera. “Chung-Cha convinces Rowoon to help her on a quest to find her soulmate, even though her sight hasn’t developed yet. As their journey progresses over the years and Chung-Cha continues to search for her perfect match, Rowoon slowly gains the sight of the strings and realizes that she’s Chung-Cha’s true soulmate. Only Chung-Cha’s found someone new…someone she’d like Rowoon to tie her string to…and you’ll have to read the rest to find out what happens next.”

“That was a lovely synopsis, Seulgi-ssi,” Jongin praised, clapping his hands together with the audience. He passed Seulgi a copy of her book and held his own out for all to see. “Now, I do believe I heard a little something about a book tour. Could you tell us about that?” Jongin set down the cards onto the table and turned his full attention back to Seulgi.

“That’s right, I’m going to be visiting a few cities to meet up with fans! So far, we’ve planned for Seoul, Busan, Incheon, and Daegu. Tomorrow’s the first day, and it’s going to be held at art gallery of the Lotte Department Store,” the author replied. Jongin smiled. “That’s wonderful to hear, perhaps I’ll go and get my own copy signed!” Seulgi flashed a grin at him, knowing that his words were true. The famous show host was known for his collection of limited editions of her novels and went to get them signed any time he had a new one.

“Now, I’ve got one last question from a viewer here,” Jongin said, waving a crisp card in the air. “Shoot,” Seulgi replied, confident that the rest of the takes would be smooth sailing. In their rehearsal, the book tour announcement was one of the last things she and Jongin would talk about. After this, she’d be home free.

“The last question of the day is…is _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ a true story?”

 _Stall._ It’s the only clear and concise thought that cuts through her mind like the jagged edge of a knife. One of her first lessons of public relations as an idol was that if something catches you off guard, stall until you catch your wits about you. “You mean, is it based on a true story?” Seulgi asks, clarifying the question without missing a beat.

Internally, her mind races to extinguish the wildfire emotions spreading throughout her body. _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ was in fact a true story. A tear threatened to well up in her eye and she blinked it away, pretending to scan the crowd as Jongin studied the question card again. This didn’t sound like a regular question from a fan, Seulgi thought to herself. It had a ring of knowing to it that a typical fan wouldn’t be capable of possessing. Perhaps Seungwan or Joohyun had sent it in?

Or maybe her imagination was just running wild again and a fan truly did wonder. “They don’t specify, but I think that’s my best guess as to what they meant,” Jongin replied, not noticing anything amiss in his guest. The author reached over and grabbed her glass of water, taking a few calculated gulps as the entire studio studied her. Her hand shakes ever so slightly when she goes to set down the glass, and she feels another wave of white-hot embarrassment creeping over her skin.

“Is _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ a true story…,” Seulgi murmurs aloud, settling back into her armchair, trying to seem outwardly calm and composed. The eyes of the crowd honed in on her, she could feel them like they were tiny little crosshairs aimed at her face. The author chewed on the sentence for a moment or two, pondering what she should say next. She hoped Joohyun was watching the broadcast somewhere, that she could hear her.

“I think I’ll let the reader decide that for themselves, no?” She said finally, reaching for her glass to take another sip. Jongin gave her a knowing smile. “An excellent answer. Everyone, if you’ve the chance please check out _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ by Kang Seulgi, in stores today! We’ve gotten word that they’re flying off the shelves, so be sure to pick one up before they’re gone!” Jongin addressed the announcement, closing the interview out.

He flashed Seulgi’s latest book at the camera and the crowd. Both he and Seulgi did a small bow and waved as the set faded out into darkness and staff workers began to clear the seats. Seulgi sat there, a fixed grin stretching across her cheeks. Though she tried to maintain the thrill of being a guest on one of the most popular talk shows in the nation, Seulgi couldn’t get the question out of her head. It echoed in her ears, over and over as Jongin stood and offered her his hand. “Fantastic show, Seulgi-yah!” He complimented as he helped Seulgi stand from the chair.

“Thank you,” the author said, shyly, though her mind was still half a mile away. “Sushi at the usual place with the crew?” Jongin asked, flicking his eyebrows up. It had become an unspoken tradition to go out for lunch after a show with everyone who worked on the set. Although Seulgi was feeling a little wary after that question, she figured she should go anyways.

Being surrounded by so many people while simultaneously being entertained by Jongin’s conversational skills meant an almost surefire way to let all of her worries ease away. Seulgi nodded her head as they made their way back to their dressing rooms. “I’ll be ready in ten,” she told him with a grin before disappearing into her room.

Two hours later, when it was time to part ways from the restaurant, Seulgi bid everyone a warm goodbye and made her way towards her manager’s car. She climbed into the van and slumped down into the seat, finally safe behind the tinted windows. Soft jazz music played in the background as her manager set course for Seulgi’s apartment.

Seulgi appreciated the quiet atmosphere. She hadn’t been able to glance at her phone for half the day because she’d been too busy conversing with Jongin and his staff workers and hadn’t wanted to appear rude. As she glanced down at the device, she found that Yeri and Sooyoung had blown up her notifications with messages, wondering how everything had gone.

Seulgi had told them about the idea for _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ before she had even begun to write it. They were the ones who had come up with the idea of doing a book tour in hopes of coaxing Joohyun out of hiding. An ingenious idea, as Seulgi hadn’t held a tour in over two years, and what better time to do it with a story that meant so much to her?

“The interview’s already become a hit,” her manager piped up once Seulgi set her phone back down. “We’ve got a couple of radio hosts who’ve announced your book tour,” he added. “Even a few celebrities have posted photographs on their social media sites with _Cut by the Crimson Cord_.” Seulgi nodded her head, chin propped up on her fist as she stared out of the car window as Seoul washed by in a blur of color.

“Perhaps within the next upcoming week or so we could add a few more interviews and shows after the book tour is over, to ramp up more interest?” He glanced at her for confirmation, but found that she was lost in her thoughts, watching as the sun set behind the high rises of the city. Respecting her space, the man cleared his throat and turned up the music. He could always text her a possible write up of a schedule after he dropped her off.

Twenty minutes later, Seulgi bid him a quiet good night and stepped out into the underground parking garage of her apartment complex. She made her way through one of the doors leading to the lobby and found herself waltzing through the luxurious lobby of the complex. She nodded her head at the woman sitting at the front desk, who shot her a winning smile before returning back to work.

Seulgi made her way up a small marble stairwell opposite to a larger one which would lead one straight up to the first floor of apartments. A smaller stairwell led her to a somewhat narrow corridor with an elevator at the very far end. Unlike the other elevators in operation within the building, _this_ one only let one up after scanning an elaborately designed key. It was the penthouse elevator. _Her_ penthouse elevator.

No one but her had access to it. She jabbed at one of the elevator buttons with her thumb, and after scanning her room key, waited patiently for it to whisk her up towards the top floor. When she stepped out of the elevator again, she felt last of her energy for the day give out.

Sluggishly, she moved about the penthouse, shrugging off her coat onto the living room couch and dragging herself towards the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. She took out her phone and unlocked it, flicking her way through her applications. Before she even realized what she was doing, Joohyun’s contact information appeared on the screen.

Seulgi gazed longingly at the older woman’s photograph, taken discreetly by Seulgi during one of their last high school hangouts. Nostalgia washed over her like the tide, casting her out to sea in a current of overflowing emotions. It’d been years since she’d last heard any new information on Joohyun. No doubt her friends were still in the dark about the older woman as well. After the first year was nearly up, Yeri and Sooyoung had been assured Joohyun would pop back up in Seoul after her hiatus, ready to incorporate herself back into their lives.

Yet Joohyun remained ever the elusive figure. The most Seulgi had seen of her were from her dreams or from when she imagined catching glimpses of the older woman out of the corners of her eyes, only to turn and see no one there. Her thumb hovered over the call button for a good ten seconds of hesitation before she exited out of the app and shut her phone off, setting it face down on the white marble kitchen counter.

She filled herself another glass of ice cold water and chugged it down with a bitter smile. She stared out at the view of downtown Seoul from the window above the sink, watching the blazing trail of car lights and neon signs lining the streets. Here, so far from the ground, the noise of the city was blissfully blocked out. It was the perfect environment for a writer to work in, where she could focus on her work for hours on end without interruption.

It’s not like Joohyun would’ve answered, anyways, Seulgi chastised herself. Had she pressed that button, she would’ve just be listening to the same voicemail the older woman had from three years prior. Just as she set the glass in the dishwasher, her phone rang. With a start, she snatched the device up, hoping that it was the one person she’d been missing all these years. But instead of her soulmate, it’s Seungwan’s contact photo engulfing Seulgi’s phone screen.

The author feels her stomach lurch as she listens to her ringtone go off, gazing into the eyes of the other woman’s photograph. They hadn’t spoken ever since Seulgi sent off the _I’m sorry_ response to her _I know it’s you, Seul_ from the night where all of this had begun. What could she want? Seulgi thought to herself. Was she finally going to snap at me? Blame me for everything that happened that day? Her hand shook as she accepted Seungwan’s call, hesitantly lifting the device to her ear.

“Hello?” She mumbles into the receiver, feeling her heart rate speed up. Below her, the world was oblivious to her trouble. Crowds of people flocked from storefront to storefront, arms laden with shopping bags as they chatted with friends. Some carried steaming takeaway boxes from the food vendors lining the street. Some talked on the phone, carrying briefcases and cutting their way through the bustling crowd. Seulgi watched them all, gripping the kitchen sink tightly, as if she were afraid she would fall.

“Hey, Seulgi-yah, it’s been a while!” The Canadian woman exclaimed enthusiastically. Seulgi felt herself tremble slightly, confused at her chipper tone. Before she could open her mouth to ask anything more, Seungwan piped up again. “Mind buzzing me into your apartment complex?” she asks, “I’m downstairs in the lobby and the doorman says he can’t let me up unless if he’s got your permission.” Seulgi’s heart caught up in her throat, nearly choking her.

“Sure thing,” Seulgi said, recovering after a second. “Give me a second.” She walked back over to her living room, phone still pressed against her check, till she rounded the corner of the entry hall. Against the wall, beside the light switch and the set of double ebony doors, there was a separate button. A buzzer that would notify the attendant downstairs to swipe Seungwan into the elevator with a temporary one-use key. She pressed it and watched it light up gold.

“Alright,” she told Seungwan. “I’ll see you when you come up? Just walk through the double doors you’ll see when you step out of the elevator. I’ll be waiting for you.” The Canadian woman hummed her response and hung up, leaving Seulgi standing there, still wondering what this was all about. Once her hostess instincts kicked in, she set the kettle on in the kitchen and rummaged up a quick spread of snacks to display on the coffee table in the living room.

Just as she’d poured them both a mug of honey chamomile tea, she heard the elevator door ding. A wave of nervousness flooded over her before she fixed a smile on her face and walked into the living room with the tea in hand. As she set them down, Seungwan emerged from the double set of doors and let out a soft, “ _Holy shit_ …hello?”

Chuckling, Seulgi waved the Canadian woman into the room, putting on what she hoped was a lopsided grin. She could feel herself still trembling slightly, and kept her hands knotted together in front of her. “Come on in!” Seulgi sat herself down on the red velvet upholstered couch and watched the other woman shut the doors to the entry way behind her.

“This is…new,” Seungwan says, gesturing to the room around her. Seulgi smiled fondly up at the fourteen-foot ceiling towering above them. “Costs about an arm and a leg a month, but once I sold a few of my vacation homes I wasn’t using anymore, it seemed like a good price for the amount of privacy I have here. You don’t get paparazzi peeking through your windows when you live up on the top floor.” Seungwan took a few timid steps into the living room, eyes wandering about the living space.

“You’ve got another one overlooking Central Park, right?” Seungwan asked, reaching a hand out to brush her fingertips against the marble walls. Seulgi bowed her head, both embarrassed and flattered that Seungwan seemed to have been keeping up with her after all. “That’s right. I’ve got a Manhattan penthouse I snagged two years ago, this Seoul penthouse, and my original home.”

Seungwan hummed thoughtfully at the knowledge of Seulgi’s wealth before taking a seat adjacent to Seulgi on the matching red loveseat. Seulgi gestured to the tea cup with a nervous smile. “It’s your favorite.” Seungwan beams at her before picking it up off of its blue china saucer. “You remembered,” the Canadian woman said, taking a small sip of the beverage. For a moment, the two women study each other from across the coffee table.

Seulgi notices the way Seungwan’s dyed her hair back to its natural shade. No longer did the other woman sport the bleach blond locks Seulgi remembered so well. Waves of rich, chocolate brown cascaded down Seungwan’s shoulders, long and healthy. Her features seemed to be more tender than Seulgi remembered, giving her a less severe look than how Seulgi had pictured her in her head for the past three years.

All things considered, Seungwan looked good. But Seulgi knew just how easy it was to hide away the truth from others, and wondered if the Canadian woman was truly as well as she appeared to be. “You must be wondering why I’m here, right?” Seungwan says finally, breaking the silence between them. She sets down her empty tea cup and cuts right to the chase.

“I’m not angry with you, Seulgi-yah. I know you must be wondering why I’ve shown up here out of the blue, right?” Seulgi’s hands begin to shake ever so slightly as she lifts her cup to take her final sip of tea. She nods her head at Seungwan, cueing the other woman to continue speaking as she concentrates on maintaining her poker face. “To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure myself.” Seungwan looks at Seulgi with a somewhat sheepish expression.

“It just felt _time._ I’ve missed you, you know? We were best friends…,” she trails off when she notices Seulgi setting down her tea cup. The author swallows hard and tries to quirk her lips up in a half smile, attempting to keep the atmosphere from descending into the guilt and sorrow she’s harbored for so long. “I missed you, too, Seungwan-ah,” she confesses, feeling tears beading up in her eyes.

She can’t take it anymore; the guilt was eating her up alive. “I’m so, so, _so_ sorry,” Seulgi croaks out, voice cracking. Seungwan’s face scrunches up in confusion, watching Seulgi bow her head into her hands. “Woah, there. Slow down. What are you sorry for, Seulgi-yah?” The Canadian woman gets up from her seat and settles down beside Seulgi, a concerned expression etching lines into her features.

“The wedding…,” Seulgi trails off, unable to complete her sentence. “That’s alright, Seulgi-yah,” Seungwan whispers, wrapping her arms around the author’s shaking shoulders. “You’re Joohyun’s soulmate, right?”

Seulgi whips her head up from the crook of Seungwan’s neck, shocked. “How did you…?” Seungwan laughs. “Just like you, I kind of kept to myself after the wedding. But then Sooyoung and Yeri eventually dragged me out of the house and we met up to talk things over. They told me everything. I can’t say that I’m not still a little hurt by everything, but I understand, Seulgi-yah. We’re both hurting in the same way, so I figured why not hurt together?”

She wipes away Seulgi’s tears with a careful finger. “I forgive you, as I hope you can forgive me. It’s been a difficult couple of years for the both of us, huh?” Seulgi nods her head, “You could say that again…and you did nothing wrong, Seungwan-ah. You didn’t know any better. More than anything, this is all my fault…I’m sure you know that Joohyun and I had that little blowout before she left, right?”

Seungwan’s smile fades, then. “How about we just spread the blame mutually, then? Joohyun and I had a little fight, too. She came back to the house really late at night and began packing bags while I was asleep. By the time I woke up, I caught her just as she was about to walk out the front door.” She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. “Let’s just say a few things were said that shouldn’t have been and that I didn’t mean…it’s not just you who’s been feeling guilty about Joohyun being gone for so long.”

The two women sit in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say. Seungwan glances at her phone, frowning. “I’ve actually got to run. I’ve got a date tonight with my girlfriend, we’re supposed to catch dinner and I’ve still got to get ready.” Seulgi’s eyes dim at the realization that Seungwan was leaving so suddenly, but at the same time, she knew that a great deal of time had gone by from when the Canadian woman first stepped foot in her home.

“Wait a second, _girlfriend_!” She’d nearly missed that word Seungwan had thrown in. The Canadian woman chuckled at Seulgi’s wide eyed expression, “Yes…girlfriend. We’ve been seeing each other for almost a year now!” She rests a hand on Seulgi’s shoulder, holding back another laugh. “Her name’s Eunji, I’ll have you meet her sometime. I’ve gotten Sooyoung’s word that she’s the one. Eunji was one of my vocal students and Sooyoung happened to be visiting that day out of the blue, and when Eunji left, she told me that we were soulmates!” Seulgi finds herself beaming, face nearly splitting in two, bursting with questions.

“I know you must have a ton of questions, and I’m so sorry, but I’ve really got to run,” Seungwan says apologetically, holding a hand out to stop Seulgi from prodding. “I promise you guys will meet soon! But before I go…there’s actually one last reason why I came to visit,” Seungwan says.

She turns to rummage around in her purse for a moment and brings out a hard cover book and a ballpoint pen. Seulgi feels herself choking up with emotion as she glances at the cover. It’s _Cut by the Crimson Cord,_ its sleeve depicting a thin red string surrounded by heavy snowfall. She wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve and lets out a shaky laugh.

“I haven’t gotten the chance to even crack it open to the first page yet, but I managed to snag the last copy from the bookstore down the street. You’re selling out all over the place, it’s incredible. I tried three different stores before I could find a copy,” Seungwan explains, holding out Seulgi’s novel to her.

“Could I get your autograph, my best friend and best-selling author, Kang Seulgi?” Seulgi takes the book from Seungwan, running her fingers over the cover art. “Actually, now that I think about it I’ve got something better than an autograph that you can have,” the author mumbles, setting the book on the coffee table. “Stay here for a sec, okay?”

Seungwan watches the author make her way around the corner of the living room, retreating further into the penthouse and out of sight. Just as the Canadian woman was about to give in to the temptation of following Seulgi, the author reappears with a stack of books in her arms. “Are those…oh my god, Seulgi-yah….,” Seungwan murmurs, speechless as Seulgi carefully sets the books down on the coffee table. She reaches out traces the titles, mouth agape.

“Yep, these are all of the books I’ve written since the wedding,” Seulgi says, throwing herself back down on the cushions beside Seungwan, trying to gauge the other woman’s feelings. She isn’t sure how Seungwan will react quite yet. “These editions are specialized for you, just like old times.” Seungwan picks up one of the editions and thumbs to the first page, where Seulgi’s flowing handwriting dominates the blank canvas.

Feeling nervous, Seulgi keeps talking, trying to fill the silence between them. “I have a stack for Sooyoung and Yeri…Joohyun, too.” She winces as she says the older woman’s name but Seungwan’s too caught up in reading the notes Seulgi’s inscribed on the cover pages of each book to notice. “You never stopped personalizing them?” The Canadian woman breathes out in awe, glancing over at Seulgi with glassy eyes.

“Not once,” Seulgi promises, fighting back the urge to cry once more. In hope that perhaps one day, the five of them would sort out everything, Seulgi had continued her tradition of writing different versions of her stories for her friends so that one day she might be able to give them away face to face. She points at the book at the bottom of the stack. “I think this is the one you’re looking for, right?”

Seungwan plucks it from the bunch with a soft laugh. “I’ve always liked how you’ve kept all of ours in a black sleeve,” Seungwan murmurs, staring at the cover of her personalized _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ edition. She glances at Seulgi with a grin, her eyes crinkling up at the corners. “I’ve had a couple people ask me where I’ve gotten my copy of _All Are Welcome_ and it was a little funny to see their expression when I told them the author herself had given it to me.”

Seulgi takes a deep breath as Seungwan reads the inscription there. “After the end of the book tour for _Cut by the Crimson Cord,_ I was planning on hosting a little party here with the usual crowd…colleagues from work, things like that. Would you like to go? I haven’t asked Sooyoung or Yeri yet, but I’m sure they’d be willing to come. You could bring Eunji around, too, it’d be the perfect way to get all of us together again!”

“By the ‘usual crowd’, you mean practically every celebrity who has good taste in fiction, right?” Seungwan teases, straightening her stack of books. Seulgi blushes and looks away, because Seungwan did have a point. Now that Seulgi was considered a sort of celebrity herself, it wasn’t difficult for her to be in touch with people in the same circles. She’d been spotted on several occasions by paparazzi hanging out at cafés with members of popular girl groups, radio talk show hosts, and even with Jongin and his friends.

“Of course I’ll go!” Seungwan exclaimed, “It’ll be like another mini reunion! Eunji would be ecstatic to meet you, she’s a real big fan of your work. Don’t mind if she starts fangirling just a little bit when I introduce you.” The two of them rise from the couch and the Canadian woman surges forward to wrap her arms around Seulgi in a tight embrace. “Thanks for letting me in,” Seungwan murmurs, burying her face into Seulgi’s neck. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”

“Don’t worry about it…and _I_ should be the one thanking you,” Seulgi says, laughing as the other woman scooped up the books. She felt herself tearing up again, but forced herself to get a grip. “If you hadn’t come yourself, I’m not sure when I would’ve been able to pluck up the courage to call you up.” Seungwan rolls her eyes playfully at her, balancing the stack of books perfectly, “Somehow, you haven’t gotten over that shyness of yours, huh? Not even fame can fix that, I guess.”

“Yah!” Seulgi shouts, leading the other woman back over to the entry hall. “Considering the circumstances, I think my actions are a _tiny_ bit valid!” Seungwan laughs as she reaches for the handle of one of the ebony doors leading out to the elevator, shaking her head. “I suppose you’re right, I was nervous myself. Eunji’s the one who made me. She _actually_ kicked me out of the car while we were on our way home to get ready for our reservation when I mentioned you lived in this building.”

Seulgi’s eyebrows quirk up at this. “I’ve got a funny feeling I’m going to like this Eunji,” the author grins, backing away as Seungwan opens the doors. “I’ll text you the details of the party, sound good?” The Canadian woman nods her head and blows a kiss at her with her free hand. “That sounds perfect. It was really good to reconnect with you, Eunji’s going to be so happy,” she winks.

Just before she closes the door, Seulgi remembers something. “Wait a second!” She holds the door open with her foot. Seungwan turns around, “What’s up? Something wrong?” Seulgi takes a step back, shaking her head. “Today, I had this interview and this kind of weird question came up from one of the fans. It asked if _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ was a true story or not. Like the person who asked that knew something about…you know.” Seungwan stares curiously at her, waiting for her to finish.

“Did you send it in, Seungwan-ah? It just seemed…a little personal,” the author says, frowning ever so slightly. Seungwan places a hand on her shoulder, attempting to console her. “I didn’t send it in, but that does sound a little odd.” The two of them stood there, looking at each other, each having the same thought but not daring to say it aloud.

“Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll see you around, Seulgi-yah,” Seungwan murmurs, loosening her hold on Seulgi. She shuts the door and Seulgi stands there for a moment, taken aback by Seungwan’s words. They have a familiar ring to them. _I’ll see you around, Kang Seulgi-yah._ It takes her a few moments to recollect herself.

She gathers up their used dishes and sets them in the dishwasher, staring out of the kitchen window. “Three years already,” the author mumbles to herself, thoughts drifting back to Joohyun. She’s tempted to take out her phone and do _something_ , anything, but she knows it’s hopeless. Only time could bring Joohyun back to her, if it could even do that in the first place.

Heaving a sigh, Seulgi trudged her way into her bedroom. She needed to get a good night’s sleep if she wanted to seem well-rested at the first day of her book tour. As she got ready for bed, her thoughts wandered through all that had happened. The interview with Jongin, dinner, Seungwan’s visit, Eunji, Joohyun. Once she settled beneath the covers, Seulgi stared up at her ceiling in the dark, listening to the faint sounds of cars passing by beneath her until she felt herself drifting off into the darkness.

Yet another day had passed without Joohyun there, one where she’d finally made amends with Seungwan, and Seulgi could still hear her voice. Loud and clear.

_I’ll see you around, Kang Seulgi-yah._

 

 

**

 

The last day of the book signing tour was upon her. Even with the thousands of people who attended her signings in Seoul, Busan, and Incheon, none had been Joohyun. A few of her friends had shown up, celebrities Seulgi had met through connections at work and the like, but not the person she had held this event for in the first place.

As Seulgi bid one of her fans goodbye, sitting in the midst of Daegu’s largest shopping malls, she discreetly glanced at her watch. The Daegu book signing was nearly over, and Joohyun had been nowhere in sight. A woman waiting patiently by the table was her last fan of the evening, and Seulgi had yet to address her properly, too caught up with her thoughts.

Perhaps arranging a book tour in her soulmate’s hometown had been a shot in the dark after all, Seulgi mused to herself, staring down at the wooden tabletop before her. Perhaps fate would never be on her side. Maybe it hadn’t deemed three years to be enough time for the two of them to recover properly, that maybe no amount of time could fix them again.

A book appeared on the table before Seulgi even had the chance to look up at the woman, startling her from her thoughts. She caught a glimpse of a long, flowing black overcoat, a flash of bright red, and a pair of smart black and white sneakers before the sight of _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ captured her attention fully. Each time the author caught sight of the cover of her latest novel, the string depicted in the artwork took her breath away.

The artist who had worked on the illustration had done a fantastic job with Seulgi’s description of how she wanted the red string of fate to look. It was a replica of hers and Joohyun’s, complete with dazzling little gold beads and delicately intertwined cords. To Seulgi, it seemed like she could almost reach out and touch it. The author quirked a little half smile before taking the book in her hands and flipping to the first page. Just as she was about to ask the woman’s name, she spoke up.

“I hear that this story has a good ending,” she said, her voice soft and gentle. The sound sent a shiver down Seulgi’s spine, as if she’d been dipped into a pond of ice water. The author felt herself freezing in place as the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. _That voice._ Even after years of only being able to listen to a five second voicemail recording, Seulgi still hadn’t forgotten the sound of her voice.

“Is that so?” Seulgi asks, tilting her head up slowly, willing that it truly was Joohyun who was standing there. She allows her eyes drag over the figure before her, moving her gaze over the woman’s sharp outfit to the curve of her slender neck and finally up to her dark eyes as they flashed behind the new pair of horn-rimmed glasses settled atop her nose. Looking at Joohyun after so long felt like someone had simultaneously lifted an immense weight off of Seulgi’s shoulders while giving her a sucker punch to her gut.

Joohyun didn’t look a day older than when Seulgi had last seen her. Her eyes had been red-rimmed and watery from crying as she ducked out of Seulgi’s hotel room and into the night, all those years ago. Without realizing it, Seulgi slowly released the breath she’d been holding in. She felt the weight of three years lifting off of her shoulders, making her light and airy again.

Truthfully, _Cut by the Crimson Cord_ was _their_ story, filled in with different names, places, and times. But all that aside, it was still theirs. Seulgi had only imagined it with a happier ending, an ending that she hoped would come true one day. Perhaps now, with Joohyun here, she’d get her final wish. Seulgi’s eyes gleam with hope as Joohyun smiles down at her, clearly pleased at the surprise etched across Seulgi’s features.

She’d missed that smile. Gazing at photographs of Joohyun couldn’t ever hold the same shade as the real thing. The author woman passes back the hard cover copy of her novel back, having scribbled a message and her signature on it. Their fingers brush together, and Seulgi’s gaze flicks down to their strings twining together.

Her mind is still racing at the fact that Joohyun is here, that it’s real. Joohyun hadn’t decided to go to one of the remaining _Atropos_ to sever Seulgi’s string from her. Did this mean what Seulgi thought it did? Was this their happy ending? Or perhaps was this Joohyun’s way of saying goodbye for good, to give the both of them closure?

“I can’t say for certain,” Joohyun replies, her voice a teasing lilt. She tucks the book underneath her arm and readjusts her shoulder bag, getting ready to leave. “I haven’t gotten around to reading the ending yet…but I do think that’s what I’ve been led to believe so far.” Joohyun smiles fondly down at the cover, tracing Seulgi’s name with her index finger.

“People are calling this your best story yet, you know.” There’s a pause as Joohyun takes the book out from under her arm, absentmindedly leafing through a few of the pages. A thoughtful look crosses her face as she gazes at Seulgi’s inscription.

After a moment, she shuts the book and looks up again at Seulgi. A smile stretches beautifully across her face, slow and serene, as if they have all the time in the world.

“I can’t wait to see how the rest of it goes.”


End file.
